UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


TUSCAN    CITIES. 


TUSCAN     CITIES 


BY 


WILLIAM    D.   HOW  ELLS 


SHitfj  ElIuBttatfoitB 


FROM    DRAWINGS    AND    ETCHINGS    BY    JOSEPH    PENNELL    AND    OTHERS 


BOSTON 

TICKNOR     AND     COMPAN Y 

211    JTrrmont    5trrrt 


Copyright,  1884  and  1885, 
By  W.  D.  Howells. 


All  rights  reserved. 


iHmbcrsttg  Press : 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


u* 


-■ 

LIST     OF     ILLUSTRATIONS. 


P1GI 

Escutcheons  in  the  Cloister  of  Santa  Makia  Novella 3 

The  Virginia  Cigar G 

An  Orange-vender 10 

School-boy 10 

A  Chestnut-vender 11 

JV 

Nl               In  the  Sun 12 

A  Laborer 12 

Florence,  on  the  Arno.  —  Ponte  Veccuio 15 

A  Florentine  Flower-girl 22 

At  Doney's 23 

Across  the  Ponte  Vecchio 30 

A  Street  in  Florence 33 

San  Martino.  —  Exterior 35 

Door  of  Dante's  House 3G 

Church  where  Dante  was  married. — San  Martino 37 

John  ok  Bologna's  Devil 11 

Initial  Letter 42 

In  the  Old  Market 47 

In  the  Barge llo f>2 

A  Street  in  Oltrarno fH 


hr  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 


TllE    PORTA    KOMANA 66 

Ponte  Santa  Trinita C8 

Tailpiece ?5 

Initial  Lettek 76 

Loggia  dei  Lanzi 81 

The  Brothers  of  the  Misericordia 99 

Stenterello 102 

The  Clown 104 

On  the  Arno.  —  Rear  of  Via  de'  Bardi 110 

Florentine  Housetops 116 

Fountain  in  the  Boboli  Garden          121 

Initial  Letter       125 

A  Mountain  Town 127 

A  City  Gate 137 

Piazza  Commuxale  and  Tower  of  the  Mangia 140 

A  Street  in  Siena 148 

A  High  Breeze 149 

Under  the  Arches  in  Siena 152 

Fountain'  outside  of  the  Wall  at  Siena ]57 

Washing-day.  —  Siena 159 

Initial  Letter 101 

The  Return  from  the  Fountain 1(54 

Sienese  Gardens 168 

Up  and  Down  in  Siena 169 

Fields  within  the  Walls 171 

A  Medieval  Sienese 174 

One  of  the  Listeners .  175 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  V 

PAGE 

An  Archway  in  Siena 17<j 

Hurrying  Home .    .  183 

Sienese  Farm-house 186 

Outside  a  Sienese  Gate 187 

Going  to  Market l'jl 

The  Sweep  of  the  Arno  at  Pisa 202 

An  Arcaded  Street 205 

Relief  from  Piazza  della  Signoria 217 

Sketch  in  Lucca 225 

The  Clock-tower  of  Lucca 22'J 

The  Guanigi  Tower 232 

A  Stairway,  Lucca 233 

Tailpiece 231 

Armorial   Bearings  of  the   Podestas  in  the  Palazzo  Communale  at 

Pistoja 238 

A  Corner,  Pistoja 240 

Market-place,  Pistoja 242 

A  Street  in  Fiesole 248 

A  Florentine  Villa 249 

A  Courtyard,  Fiesole 250 

Tailpiece 251 


i      from  the  cathedral  i.ucca. 


A    FLORENTINE   MOSAIC. 


J$hal-  l-~t.'«" 


ESCUTCHEONS   IN   THE   CLOISTER   OF  SANTA   MARIA   NOVELLA. 


TUSCAN   CITIES. 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC 


ALL  the  way  down  from  Turin  to  Bologna  there  was  snow; 
not,  of  course,  the  sort  of  snow  we  had  left  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Alps,  or  the  snow  we  remembered  in  America,  but  a  snow 
picturesque,  spectacular,  and  no  colder  or  bleaker  to  the  eye  from 
the  car-window  than  the  cotton-woolly  counterfeit  which  clothes  a 
landscape  of  the  theatre.  It  covered  the  whole  Lombard  plain  to 
the  depth  of  several  inches,  and  formed  a  very  pretty  decoration  for 
the  naked  vines  and  the  trees  they  festooned.  A  sky  which  remained 
thick  and  dun  throughout  the  day  contributed  to  the  effect  of  winter, 
for  which,  indeed,  the  Genoese  merchant  in  our  carriage  said  it  was 
now  the  season. 

But  the  snow  grew  thinner  as  the  train  drew  southward,  and  about 
Bologna  the  ground  showed  through  it  in  patches.  Then  the  night 
came  on,  and  when  we  reached  Florence  at  nine  o'clock  we  emerged 
into  an  atmosphere  which,  in  comparison  with  the  severity  of  the 
transalpine  air,  could  only  be  called  mildly  reproachful.  For  a  few 
days  we  rejoiced  in  its  concessive  softness  with  some  such  sense  of 
•escape  as  must  come  to  one  who  has  left  moral  obligation  behind ; 


4  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

and  then  our  penalty  began.  If  we  walked  half  a  mile  away  from 
our  hotel,  we  despaired  of  getting  back,  and  commonly  had  ourselves 
brought  home  by  one  of  the  kindly  cab-drivers  who  had  observed 
our  exhaustion.  It  came  finally  to  our  not  going  away  from  our 
hotel  to  such  distances  at  all.  We  observed  with  a  mild  passivity 
the  vigor  of  the  other  guests,  who  went  and  came  from  morning  till 
night,  and  brought  to  the  table  d'hote  minds  full  of  the  spoil  of  their 
day's  sight-seeing.  We  confessed  that  we  had  not,  perhaps,  been 
out  that  day,  and  we  accounted  for  ourselves  by  saying  that  we  had 
seen  Florence  before,  a  good  many  years  ago,  and  that  we  were  in 
no  haste,  for  we  were  going  to  stay  all  winter.  We  tried  to  pass  it 
off  as  well  as  we  could,  and  a  fortnight  had  gone  by  before  we  had 
darkened  the  doors  of  a  church  or  a  gallery. 

I  suppose  that  all  this  lassitude  was  the  effect  of  our  sudden  tran- 
sition from  the  tonic  air  of  the  Swiss  mountains ;  and  I  should  be 
surprised  if  our  experience  of  the  rigors  of  a  Florentine  December 
were  not  considered  libellous  by  many  whose  experience  was  different. 
Nevertheless,  I  report  it ;  for  the  reader  may  like  to  trace  to  it  the 
languid  lack  of  absolute  opinion  concerning  Florence  and  her  phe- 
nomena, and  the  total  absence  of  final  wisdom  on  any  point,  which 
I  hope  he  will  be  able  to  detect  throughout  these  pages. 

II. 

It  was  quite  three  weeks  before  I  began  to  keep  any  record  of 
impressions,  and  I  cannot  therefore  fix  the  date  at  which  I  pushed 
my  search  for  them  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Piazza  Santa  Maria 
Novella,  where  we  were  lodged.  It  is  better  to  own  up  at  once  to 
any  sin  which  one  is  likely  to  be  found  out  in,  for  then  one  gains  at 
least  the  credit  of  candor  and  courage ;  and  I  will  confess  here  that 
I  had  come  to  Florence  with  the  intention  of  writing  about  it.  But 
I  rather  wonder  now  why  I  should  have  thought  of  writing  of  the 
whole  city,  when  one  piazza  in  it  was  interesting  enough  to  make  a 
book  about.  It  was  in  itself  not  one  of  the  most  interesting  piazzas 
of  Florence  in  the  ordinary  way.     I  do  not  know  that  anything  very 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  5 

historical  ever  happened  there ;  but  that  is  by  no  means  saying  that 
there  did  not.  There  used,  under  the  early  Medici  and  the  late 
grand  dukes,  to  be  chariot-races  in  it,  the  goals  of  which  are  the 
two  obelisks  by  John  of  Bologna,  set  upon  the  backs  of  the  bronze 
turtles  which  the  sympathetic  observer  will  fancy  gasping  under 
their  weight  at  either  end  of  the  irregular  space  ;  and  its  wide  floor 
is  still  unpaved,  so  that  it  is  a  sop  of  mud  in  rainy  weather,  and  a 
whirl  of  dust  in  dry.  At  the  end  opposite  the  church  is  the  terminus 
of  the  steam  tramway  running  to  Prato,  and  the  small  engine  that 
drew  the  trains  of  two  or  three  horse-cars  linked  together  was  per- 
petually fretting  and  snuffling  about  the  base  of  the  obelisk  there,  as 
if  that  were  a  stump  and  the  engine  were  a  boy's  dog  with  intolerable 
conviction  of  a  woodchuck  under  it.  From  time  to  time  the  con- 
ductor blew  a  small  horn  of  a  feeble,  reedy  note,  like  that  of  the 
horns  which  children  find  in  their  stockings  on  Christmas  morning; 
and  then  the  poor  little  engine  hitched  itself  to  the  train,  and  with 
an  air  of  hopeless  affliction  snuffled  away  toward  Prato,  and  left  the 
woodchuck  under  the  obelisk  to  escape.  The  impression  of  a  wood- 
chuck  was  confirmed  by  the  digging  round  the  obelisk  which  a  gang 
of  workmen  kept  up  all  winter;  they  laid  down  water-pipes,  and 
then  dug  them  up  again.  But  when  the  engine  was  gone  we  could 
give  our  minds  to  other  sights  in  the  piazza. 


III. 

One  of  these  was  the  passage  of  troops,  infantry  or  cavalry,  who 
were  always  going  to  or  from  the  great  railway  station  behind  the 
church,  and  who  entered  it  with  a  gay  blare  of  bugles,  extinguished 
midway  of  the  square,  letting  the  measured  tramp  of  feet  or  the 
irregular  clack  of  hoofs  make  itself  heard.  This  was  always  thrilling, 
and  we  could  not  get  enough  of  the  brave  spectacle.  We  rejoiced  in 
the  parade  of  Italian  military  force  with  even  more  than  native  ardor, 
for  we  were  not  taxed  to  pay  for  it,  and  personally  the  men  were 
beautiful ;  not  large  or  strong,  but  regular  and  refined  of  face,  rank 
and  file  alike,  in  that  democracy  of  good  looks  which  one  sees  in  no 


6  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

other  land.  They  marched  with  a  lounging,  swinging  step,  under  a 
heavy  burden  of  equipment,  and  with  the  sort  of  quiet  patience  to 
which  the  whole  nation  has  been  schooled  in  its  advance  out  of 
slavish  subjection  to  the  van  of  civilization. 

They  were  not  less  charming  when  they  came  through  off  duty, 

the  officers  in  their  statuesque  cloaks,  with  the  gleam  of  their  swords 

beneath  the  folds,  striding  across  the  piazza  in  twos  or  threes,  the 

common    soldiers    straggling   loosely   over   its 

space  with  the  air  of  peasants  let  loose  amid 

the  wonders  of  a  city,  and  smoking  their  long, 

straw-stemmed  Italian  cigars,  with  their  eyes 

all  abroad.     I  do  not  think  they  kept  up  so 

active  a  courtship  with  the  nursemaids  as  the 

soldiers  in  the  London  squares  and  parks,  but 

„„„  ,rT™T„TT.  „T„4„        there  was  a  friendliness  in  their  relations  with 

THE  VIRGINIA   CIGAR. 

the  population  everywhere  that  spoke  them 
still  citizens  of  a  common  country,  and  not  alien  to  its  life  in  any 
way.  They  had  leisure  just  before  Epiphany  to  take  a  great  in- 
terest in  the  preparations  the  boys  were  making  for  the  celebration 
of  that  feast,  with  a  noise  of  long,  slender  trumpets  of  glass ;  and  I 
remember  the  fine  behavior  of  a  corporal  in  a  fatigue-cap,  who 
happened  along  one  day  when  an  orange-vender  and  a  group  of 
urchins  were  trying  a  trumpet,  and  extorting  from  it  only  a 
few  stertorous  crumbs  of  sound.  The  corporal  put  it  lightly  to 
his  lips,  and  blew  a  blast  upon  it  that  almost  shivered  our  win- 
dow-panes, and  then  walked  off  with  the  effect  of  one  who  would 
escape  gratitude ;  the  boys  looked  after  him  till  he  was  quite 
out  of  sight  with  mute  wonder,  such  as  pursues  the  doer  of  a 
noble  action. 

One  evening  an  officer's  funeral  passed  through  the  piazza,  with  a 
pomp  of  military  mourning ;  but  that  was  no  more  effective  than  the 
merely  civil  funeral  which  we  once  saw  just  at  twilight.  The  bearers 
were  in  white  cowls  and  robes,  and  one  went  at  the  head  of  the  bier 
with  a  large  cross.  The  others  carried  torches,  which  sometimes 
they  inverted,  swinging  forward  with  a  slow  processional  movement, 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  7 

and  chanting  monotonously,  with  the  clear  dark  of  the  evening  light 
keen  and  beautiful  around  them. 

At  other  times  we  heard  the  jangle  of  a  small  bell,  and  looking 
out  we  saw  a  priest  of  Santa  Maria,  with  the  Host  in  his  hand  and 
his  taper-bearing  retinue  around  him,  going  to  administer  the  extreme 
unction  to  some  passing  soul  in  our  neighborhood.  Some  of  the 
spectators  uncovered,  but  for  the  most  part  they  seemed  not  to  notice 
it,  and  the  solemnity  had  an  effect  of  business  which  I  should  be  at 
some  loss  to  make  the  reader  feel.  But  that  is  the  effect  which 
church  ceremonial  in  Italy  has  always  had  to  me.  I  do  not  say  that 
the  Italians  are  more  indifferent  to  their  religion  than  other  people, 
but  that,  having  kept  up  its  shows,  always  much  the  same  in  the 
celebration  of  different  faiths,  —  Etruscan,  Hellenic,  Hebraic,  —  so 
long,  they  were  more  tired  of  them,  and  were  willing  to  let  it  trans- 
act itself  without  their  personal  connivance  when  they  could. 

IV. 

All  the  life  of  the  piazza  was  alike  novel  to  the  young  eyes  which 
now  saw  it  for  the  first  time  from  our  windows,  and  lovely  in  ours, 
to  which  youth  seemed  to  come  back  in  its  revision.  I  should  not 
know  how  to  give  a  just  sense  of  the  value  of  a  man  who  used  to 
traverse  the  square  with  a  wide  wicker  tray  on  his  head,  piled  up 
with  Chianti  wine-flasks  that  looked  like  a  heap  of  great  bubbles.  I 
must  trust  him  to  the  reader's  sympathy,  together  with  the  pensive 
donkeys  abounding  there,  who  acquired  no  sort  of  spiritual  pride 
from  the  sense  of  splendid  array,  though  their  fringed  and  tasselled 
harness  blazed  with  burnished  brass.  They  appeared  to  be  stationed 
in  our  piazza  while  their  peasant-owners  went  about  the  city  on  their 
errands,  and  it  may  have  been  in  an  access  of  homesickness  too  acute 
for  repression  that,  with  a  preliminary  quivering  of  the  tail  and  final 
rise  of  that  member,  they  lifted  their  woe-begone  countenances  and 
broke  into  a  long  disconsolate  bray,  expressive  of  a  despair  which 
has  not  yet  found  its  way  into  poetry,  and  is  only  vaguely  suggested 
by  some  music  of  the  minor  key. 


8  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

These  donkeys,  which  usually  stood  under  our  hotel,  were  balanced 
in  the  picture  by  the  line  of  cabs  at  the  base  of  the  tall  buildings 
on  the  other  side,  whence  their  drivers  watched  our  windows  with 
hopes  not  unnaturally  excited  by  our  interest  in  them,  which  they 
might  well  have  mistaken  for  a  remote  intention  of  choosing  a  cab. 
From  time  to  time  one  of  them  left  the  rank,  and  took  a  turn  in 
the  square  from  pure  effervescence  of  expectation,  flashing  his  equi- 
page upon  our  eyes,  and  snapping  his  whip  in  explosions  that  we 
heard  even  through  the  closed  windows.  They  were  of  all  degrees 
of  splendor  and  squalor,  both  cabs  and  drivers,  from  the  young 
fellow  with  false,  floating  blue  eyes  and  fur-trimmed  coat,  who  drove 
a  shining  cab  fresh  from  the  builder's  hands,  to  the  little  man  whose 
high  hat  was  worn  down  almost  to  its  structural  pasteboard,  and 
whose  vehicle  limped  over  the  stones  with  querulous  complaints  from 
its  rheumatic  joints.  When  we  began  to  drive  out,  we  resolved  to 
have  always  the  worldlier  turnout ;  but  we  got  it  only  two  or  three 
times,  falling  finally  and  permanently  —  as  no  doubt  we  deserved, 
in  punishment  of  our  heartless  vanity  —  to  the  wreck  at  the  other 
extreme  of  the  scale.  There  is  no  describing  the  zeal  and  vigi- 
lance by  which  this  driver  obtained  and  secured  us  to  himself. 
For  a  while  we  practised  devices  for  avoiding  him,  and  did  not 
scruple  to  wound  his  feelings ;  but  we  might  as  well  have  been 
kind,  for  it  came  to  the  same  thing  in  the  end.  Once  we  had 
almost  escaped.  Our  little  man's  horse  had  been  feeding,  and 
he  had  not  fastened  his  bridle  on  when  the  portiere  called  a 
carriage  for  us.  He  made  a  snatch  at  his  horse's  bridle ;  it  came 
off  in  his  hand  and  hung  dangling.  Another  driver  saw  the  sit- 
uation, and  began  to  whip  his  horse  across  the  square ;  our  little 
man  seized  his  horse  by  the  forelock,  and  dragging  him  along 
at  the  top  of  his  speed,  arrived  at  the  hotel  door  a  little  the 
first.  What  could  we  do  but  laugh  ?  Everybody  in  the  piazza 
applauded,  and  I  think  it  must  have  been  this  fact  which  confirmed 
our  subjection.  After  that  we  pretended  once  that  our  little  man 
had  cheated  us ;  but  with  respectful  courage  he  contested  the  fact, 
and  convinced  us  that  we  were  wrong;  he  restored  a  gold  pencil 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  9 

which  he  had  found  in  his  cab;  and,  though  he  never  got  it,  he 
voluntarily  promised  to  get  a  new  coat,  to  do  us  the  more  honor 
when  he  drove  us  out  to  pay  visits. 

V. 

He  was,  like  all  of  his  calling  with  whom  we  had  to  do  in  Florence, 
amiable  and  faithful,  and  he  showed  that  personal  interest  in  us 
from  the  beginning  which  is  instant  with  most  of  them,  and  which 
found  pretty  expression  when  I  was  sending  home  a  child  to  the 
hotel  from  a  distance  at  nightfall.  I  was  persistent  in  getting  the 
driver's  number,  and  he  divined  the  cause  of  my  anxiety. 

"  Oh,  rest  easy  ! "  he  said,  leaning  down  toward  me  from  his  perch. 
"  I,  too,  am  a  father ! " 

Possibly  a  Boston  hackman  might  have  gone  so  far  as  to  tell  me 
that  he  had  young  ones  of  his  own,  but  he  would  have  snubbed  in 
reassuring  me ;  and  it  is  this  union  of  grace  with  sympathy  which,  I 
think,  forms  the  true  expression  of  Italian  civilization.  It  is  not  yet 
valued  aright  in  the  world ;  but  the  time  must  come  when  it  will 
not  be  shouldered  aside  by  physical  and  intellectual  brutality.  I 
hope  it  may  come  so  soon  that  the  Italians  will  not  have  learned  bad 
manners  from  the  rest  of  us.  As  yet,  they  seem  uncontaminated, 
and  the  orange-vender  who  crushes  a  plump  grandmother  up  against 
the  wall  in  some  narrow  street  is  as  gayly  polite  in  his  apologies,  and 
she  as  graciously  forgiving,  as  they  could  have  been  under  any  older 
regime. 

But  probably  the  Italians  could  not  change  if  they  would.  They 
may  fancy  changes  in  themselves  and  in  one  another,  but  the  barba- 
rian who  returns  to  them  after  a  long  absence  cannot  see  that  they 
are  personally  different,  for  all  their  political  transformations.  Life, 
which  has  become  to  us  like  a  book  which  we  silently  peruse  in  the 
closet,  or  at  most  read  aloud  with  a  few  friends,  is  still  a  drama 
with  them,  to  be  more  or  less  openly  played.  This  is  what  strikes 
you  at  first,  and  strikes  you  at  last.  It  is  the  most  recognizable 
thing  in  Italy,  and  I  was  constantly  pausing  in  my  languid  strolls, 


10 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


AN   ORANGE-VENDER. 


confronted  by  some  dramatic  episode  so  bewilderingly  familiar  that 
it  seemed  to  me  I  must  have  already  attempted  to  write  about  it. 
One  day,  on  the  narrow  sidewalk  beside  the  escutcheoned  cloister- 
wall  of  the  church,  two  young  and  handsome  peo- 
ple stopped  me  while  they  put  upon  that  public 
stage  the  pretty  melodrama  of  their  feelings.  The 
bare-headed  girl  wore  a  dress  of  the  red  and  black 
plaid  of  the  Florentine  laundresses,  and  the  young 
fellow  standing  beside  her  had  a  cloak  falling  from 
his  left  shoulder.  She  was  looking  down  and 
away  from  him,  impatiently  pulling  with  one  hand 
at  the  fingers  of  another,  and  he  was  vividly  ges- 
ticulating, while  he  explained  or  expostulated,  with 
his  eyes  not  upon  her,  but  looking  straight  for- 
ward ;  and  they  both  stood  as  if,  in  a  moment  of 
opera,  they  were  confronting  an  audience  over  the 
footlights.  But  they  were  both  quite  unconscious,  and  were  merely 
obeying  the  histrionic  instinct  of  their  race.  So  was  the  school-boy 
in  clerical  robes,  when,  goaded  by  some  taunt,  pointless  to  the  foreign 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC. 


11 


bystander,  he  flung  himself  into  an  attitude  of  deadly   scorn,  and 
defied  the  tormenting  gamins ;  so  were  the  vender  of  chestnut-paste 
and   his   customer,  as  they  debated 
over  the   smoking  viand   the   exact 
quantity  and  quality  which  a  soldo  "'"-•- 

ought  to  purchase,  in  view  of  the 
state  of  the  chestnut  market  and  the 
price  demanded  elsewhere ;  so  was 
the  little  woman  who  deplored,  in 
impassioned  accents,  the  non-arrival 
of  the  fresh  radishes  we  liked  with 
our  coffee,  when  I  went  a  little  too 
early  for  them  to  her  stall;  so  was 
the  fruiterer  who  called  me  back 
with  an  effect  of  heroic  magnanimity 
to  give  me  the  change  I  had  for- 
gotten, after  beating  him  down  from 
a  franc  to  seventy  centimes  on  a 
dozen    of    mandarin    oranges.      The 

sweetness  of  his  air,  tempering  the  severity  of  his  self-righteousness 
in  doing  this,  lingers  with  me  yet,  and  makes  me  ashamed  of 
having  got  the  oranges  at  a  just  price.     I  wish  he  had  cheated  me. 

We,  too,  can  be  honest  if  we  try,  but  the  effort  seems  to  sour  most 
of  us.  We  hurl  our  integrity  in  the  teeth  of  the  person  whom  we 
deal  fairly  with ;  but  when  the  Italian  makes  up  his  mind  to  be  just, 
it  is  in  no  ungracious  spirit.  It  was  their  lovely  ways,  far  more  than 
their  monuments  of  history  and  art,  that  made  return  to  the  Floren- 
tines delightful.  I  would  rather  have  had  a  perpetuity  of  the  came- 
rieres  smile  when  he  came  up  with  our  coffee  in  the  morning  than 
Donatello's  San  Giorgio,  if  either  were  purchasable ;  and  the  face  of 
the  old  chamber-maid,  Maria,  full  of  motherly  affection,  was  better 
than  the  facade  of  Santa  Maria  Novella. 


A   CHESTNUT-VENDER. 


12 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


VI. 


It  is  true  that  the  church  bore  its  age  somewhat  better ;  for  though 

Maria  must  have  been  beautiful,  too,  in  her  youth,  her  complexion 

had  not  that  luminous  flush  in  which  three  hundred  years  have  been 

painting  the  marble  front  of  the 
church.  It  is  this  light,  or  this 
color,  —  I  hardly  know  which  to 
call  it,  —  that  remains  in  my  mind 
as  the  most  characteristic  quality 
of  Santa  Maria  Novella ;  and  I 
would  like  to  have  it  go  as  far  as 
possible  with  the  reader,  for  I  know 
that  the  edifice  would  not  otherwise 
present  itself  in  my  pages,  however 
flatteringly  entreated  or  severely 
censured.  I  remember  the  bold 
mixture  of  the  styles  in  its  archi- 
tecture, the  lovely  sculptures  of  its 
grand  portals,  the  curious  sun-dials 
high  in  its  front;  I  remember  the 

brand-new  restoration  of  the  screen  of  monuments  on  the  right,  with 

the  arms  of  the  noble  patrons  of  the  church 

carved   below  them,  and  the  grass  of   the 

space  enclosed   showing  green  through  the 

cloister-arches  all  winter  long ;  I  remem- 
ber also  the  unemployed  laborers  crouching 

along  its  sunny  base  for  the  heat  publicly 

dispensed  in  Italy  on  bright  days  —  when 

it  is  not  needed ;  and  they  all  gave  me  the 

same  pleasure,  equal  in   degree,  if  not  in 

kind.      While   the   languor   of    these    first 

days  was  still  heavy  upon  me,  I  crept  into 

the  church  for  a  look  at  the  Ghirlandajo  frescos  behind  the  high 

altar,  the  Virgin  of   Cimabue,  and  the   other  objects  which   one   is 


IK   THE   SUN. 


A    LABORER. 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  J 3 

advised  to  see  there,  and  had  such  modest  satisfaction  in  them  as 
may  come  to  one  who  long  ago,  once  for  all,  owned  to  himself  that 
emotions  to  which  others  testified  in  the  presence  of  such  things  were 
beyond  him.  The  old  masters  and  their  humble  acquaintance  met 
shyly,  after  so  many  years  ;  these  were  the  only  terms  on  which  I, 
at  least,  could  preserve  my  self-respect ;  and  it  was  not  till  we  had 
given  ourselves  time  to  overcome  our  mutual  diffidence  that  the  spirit 
in  which  their  work  was  imagined  stole  into  my  heart  and  made  me 
thoroughly  glad  of  it  again.  Perhaps  the  most  that  ever  came  to  me 
was  a  sense  of  tender  reverence,  of  gracious  quaintness  in  them ;  but 
this  was  enough.  In  the  mean  while  I  did  my  duty  in  Santa  Maria 
Novella.  I  looked  conscientiously  at  all  the  pictures,  in  spite  of  a 
great  deal  of  trouble  I  had  in  putting  on  my  glasses  to  read  my 
"  Walks  in  Florence  "  and  taking  them  off  to  see  the  paintings ;  and 
I  was  careful  to  identify  the  portraits  of  Poliziano  and  the  other 
Florentine  gentlemen  and  ladies  in  the  frescos.  I  cannot  say  that 
I  was  immediately  sensible  of  advantage  in  this  achievement ;  but  I 
experienced  a  present  delight  in  the  Spanish  chapel  at  finding  not 
only  Petrarch  and  Laura,  but  Boccaccio  and  Fiammetta,  in  the  groups 
enjoying  the  triumphs  of  the  church  militant.  It  will  always  remain 
a  confusion  in  our  thick  Northern  heads,  this  attribution  of  merit 
through  mere  belief  to  people  whose  lives  cast  so  little  lustre  on  their 
creeds ;  but  the  confusion  is  an  agreeable  one,  and  I  enjoyed  it  as 
much  as  when  it  first  overcame  me  in  Italy. 

VII. 

The  cicerone  who  helped  me  about  these  figures  was  a  white-robed 
young  monk,  one  of  twelve  who  are  still  left  at  Santa  Maria  Novella 
to  share  the  old  cloisters  now  mainly  occupied  by  the  pupils  of  a 
military  college  and  a  children's  school.  It  was  noon,  and  the  corri- 
dors and  the  court  were  full  of  boys  at  their  noisy  games,  on  whom 
the  young  father  smiled  patiently,  lifting  his  gentle  voice  above  their 
clamor  to  speak  of  the  suppression  of  the  convents.  This  was  my 
first  personal  knowledge  of  the  effect  of  that  measure,  ami   1    now 


14  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

perceived  the  hardship  which  it  must  have  involved,  as  I  did  not 
when  I  read  of  it,  with  my  Protestant  satisfaction,  in  the  newspapers. 
The  uncomfortable  thing  about  any  institution  which  has  survived 
its  usefulness  is  that  it  still  embodies  so  much  harmless  life  that 
must  suffer  in  its  destruction.  The  monks  and  nuns  had  been  a 
heavy  burden  no  doubt,  for  many  ages,  and  at  the  best  they  cum- 
bered the  ground ;  but  when  it  came  to  a  question  of  sweeping  them 
away,  it  meant  sorrow  and  exile  and  dismay  to  thousands  of  gentle 
and  blameless  spirits  like  the  brother  here,  who  recounted  one  of 
many  such  histories  so  meekly,  so  unresentfully.  He  and  his  few 
fellows  were  kept  there  by  the  piety  of  certain  faithful  who,  through- 
out Italy,  still  maintain  a  dwindling  number  of  monks  and  nuns  in 
their  old  cloisters  wherever  the  convent  happened  to  be  the  private 
property  of  the  order.  I  cannot  say  that  they  thus  quite  console 
the  sentimentalist  who  would  not  have  the  convents  re-established, 
even  while  suffering  a  poignant  regret  for  their  suppression ;  but  I 
know  from  myself  that  this  sort  of  sentimentalist  is  very  difficult, 
and  perhaps  he  ought  not  to  be  too  seriously  regarded. 

VIII. 

The  sentimentalist  is  very  abundant  in  Italy,  and  most  commonly 
he  is  of  our  race  and  religion,  though  he  is  rather  English  than 
American.  The  Englishman,  so  chary  of  his  sensibilities  at  home, 
abandons  himself  to  them  abroad.  At  Eome  he  already  regrets  the 
good  old  days  of  the  temporal  power,  when  the  streets  were  unsafe 
after  nightfall  and  unclean  the  whole  twenty-four  hours,  and  there 
was  no  new  quarter.  At  Venice  he  is  bowed  down  under  the  res- 
torations of  the  Ducal  Palace  and  the  church  of  St.  Mark ;  and  he 
has  no  language  in  which  to  speak  of  the  little  steamers  on  the 
Grand  Canal,  which  the  Venetians  find  so  convenient.  In  Florence, 
from  time  to  time,  he  has  a  panic  prescience  that  they  are  going 
to  tear  down  the  Ponte  Vecchio.  I  do  not  know  how  he  gets  this, 
but  he  has  it,  and  all  the  rest  of  us  sentimentalists  eagerly  share 
it  with  him  when  he  comes  in  to  the  table   d'hote   luncheon,  puts 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  17 

his  Baedeker  down  by  his  plate,  and  before  he  has  had  a  bite  of 
anything  calls  out :  "  Well,  they  are  going  to  tear  down  the  Ponte 
Vecchio ! " 

The  first  time  that  this  happened  in  our  hotel,  I  was  still  under 
the  influence  of  the  climate ;  but  I  resolved  to  visit  the  Ponte  Vec- 
chio with  no  more  delay,  lest  they  should  be  going  to  tear  it  down 
that  afternoon.  It  was  not  that  I  cared  a  great  deal  for  the  bridge 
itself,  but  my  accumulating  impressions  of  Florentine  history  had 
centred  about  it  as  the  point  where  that  history  really  began  to 
be  historic.  I  had  formed  the  idea  of  a  little  dramatic  opening  for 
my  sketches  there,  with  Buondelmonte  riding  in  from  his  villa  to 
meet  his  bride,  and  all  that  spectral  train  of  Ghibelline  and  Guelphic 
tragedies  behind  them  on  the  bridge;  and  it  appeared  to  me  that 
this  could  not  be  managed  if  the  bridge  were  going  to  be  torn 
down.  I  trembled  for  my  cavalcade,  ignominiously  halted  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Arno,  or  obliged  to  go  round  and  come  in  on  some 
other  bridge  without  regard  to  the  fact ;  and  at  some  personal  incon- 
venience I  hurried  off  to  the  Ponte  Vecchio.  I  could  not  see  that 
the  preparations  for  its  destruction  had  begun,  and  I  believe  they 
are  still  threatened  only  in  the  imagination  of  sentimental  Anglo- 
Saxons.  The  omnibuses  were  following  each  other  over  the  bridge 
in  the  peaceful  succession  of  so  many  horse-cars  to  Cambridge,  and 
the  ugly  little  jewellers'  booths  glittered  in  their  wonted  security  on 
either  hand  all  the  way  across.  The  carriages,  the  carts,  the  foot- 
passengers  were  swarming  up  and  down  from  the  thick  turmoil  of 
Por  San  Maria ;  and  the  bridge  did  not  respond  with  the  slightest 
tremor  to  the  heel  clandestinely  stamped  upon  it  for  a  final  test  of 
its  stability. 

But  the  alarm  I  had  suffered  was  no  doubt  useful,  for  it  was  after 
this  that  I  really  began  to  be  serious  with  my  material,  as  I  found  it 
everywhere  in  the  streets  and  the  books,  and  located  it  from  one  to 
the  other.  Even  if  one  has  no  literary  designs  upon  the  facts,  that 
is  incomparably  the  best  way  of  dealing  with  the  past.  At  home, 
in  the  closet,  one  may  read  history,  but  one  can  realize  it,  as  if  it 
were   something   personally   experienced,  only  on   the   spot   where 


18  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

it  was  lived.  This  seems  to  me  the  prime  use  of  travel ;  and  to 
create  the  reader  a  partner  in  the  enterprise  and  a  sharer  in  its 
realization  seems  the  sole  excuse  for  books  of  travel,  now  when  mod- 
ern facilities  have  abolished  hardship  and  danger  and  adventure, 
and  nothing  is  more  likely  to  happen  to  one  in  Florence  than  in 
Fitchburg. 

In  this  pursuit  of  the  past,  the  inquirer  will  often  surprise  himself 
in  the  possession  of  a  genuine  emotion ;  at  moments  the  illustrious 
or  pathetic  figures  of  other  days  will  seem  to  walk  before  him  un- 
mocked  by  the  grotesque  and  burlesquing  shadows  we  all  cast  while 
in  the  flesh.  I  will  not  swear  it,  but  it  would  take  little  to  persuade 
me  that  I  had  vanishing  glimpses  of  many  of  these  figures  in  Flor- 
ence. One  of  the  advantages  of  this  method  is  that  you  have  your 
historical  personages  in  a  sort  of  picturesque  contemporaneity  with 
one  another  and  with  yourself,  and  you  imbue  them  all  with  the 
sensibilities  of  our  own  time.  Perhaps  this  is  not  an  advantage,  but 
it  shows  what  may  be  done  by  the  imaginative  faculty ;  and  if  we 
do  not  judge  men  by  ourselves,  how  are  we  to  judge  them  at  all  ? 

IX. 

I  TOOK  some  pains  with  my  Florentines,  first  and  last,  I  will  con- 
fess it.  I  went  quite  back  with  them  to  the  lilies  that  tilted  all  over 
the  plain  where  they  founded  their  city  in  the  dawn  of  history,  and 
that  gave  her  that  flowery  name  of  hers.  I  came  down  with  them 
from  Fiesole  to  the  first  marts  they  held  by  the  Arno  for  the  conven- 
ience of  the  merchants  who  did  not  want  to  climb  that  long  hill  to 
the  Etruscan  citadel ;  and  I  built  my  wooden  hut  with  the  rest  hard 
by  the  Ponte  Yecchio,  which  was  an  old  bridge  a  thousand  years 
before  Gaddi's  structure.  I  was  with  them  all  through  that  dim 
turmoil  of  wars,  martyrdoms,  pestilences,  heroisms,  and  treasons  for 
a  thousand  years,  feeling  their  increasing  purpose  of  municipal  free- 
dom and  hatred  of  the  one-man  power  (il  governo  cVun  solo)  alike 
under  Eomans,  Huns,  Longobards,  Franks,  and  Germans,  till  in  the 
eleventh  century  they  marched  up  against  their  mother  city,  and 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  19 

destroyed  Fiesole,  leaving  nothing  standing  but  the  fortress,  the 
cathedral,  and  the  Gaffe  Aurora,  where  the  visitor  lunches  at  this 
day,  and  has  an  incomparable  view  of  Florence  in  the  distance. 
When,  in  due  time,  the  proud  citizens  began  to  go  out  from  their 
gates  and  tumble  their  castles  about  the  ears  of  the  Germanic  counts 
and  barons  in  the  surrounding  country,  they  had  my  sympathy 
almost  to  the  point  of  active  co-operation ;  though  I  doubt  now  if  we 
did  well  to  let  those  hornets  come  into  the  town  and  build  other 
nests  within  the  walls,  where  they  continued  nearly  as  pestilent  as 
ever.  Still,  so  long  as  no  one  of  them  came  to  the  top  permanently, 
there  was  no  danger  of  the  one-man  power  we  dreaded,  and  we  could 
adjust  our  arts,  our  industries,  our  finances  to  the  state  of  street  war- 
fare, even  if  it  lasted,  as  at  one  time,  for  forty  years.  I  was  as  much 
opposed  as  Dante  himself  to  the  extension  of  the  national  limits, 
though  I  am  not  sure  now  that  our  troubles  came  from  acquiring 
territory  three  miles  away,  beyond  the  Ema,  and  I  could  not  trace 
the  bitterness  of  partisan  feeling  even  to  the  annexation  of  Prato, 
whither  it  took  me  a  whole  hour  to  go  by  the  steam-tram.  But 
when  the  factions  were  divided  under  the  names  of  Guelph  and 
Ghibelline,  and  subdivided  again  into  Bianchi  and  Neri,  I  was  always 
of  the  Guelph  and  the  Bianchi  party,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that  these 
wished  the  best  to  the  commonwealth,  and  preserved  most  actively 
the  traditional  fear  and  hate  of  the  one-man  power.  I  believed 
heartily  in  the  wars  against  Pisa  and  Siena,  though  afterward,  when 
I  visited  those  cities,  I  took  their  part  against  the  Florentines,  per- 
haps because  they  were  finally  reduced  by  the  Medici,  —  a  family  I 
opposed  from  the  very  first,  uniting  with  any  faction  or  house  that 
contested  its  rise.  They  never  deceived  me  when  they  seemed  to 
take  the  popular  side,  nor  again  when  they  voluptuously  favored  the 
letters  and  arts,  inviting  the  city  full  of  Greeks  to  teach  them.  I 
mourned  all  through  the  reign  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent  over  the 
subjection  of  the  people,  never  before  brought  under  the  one-man 
power,  and  flattered  to  their  undoing  by  the  splendors  of  the  city 
and  the  state  he  created  for  him.  When  our  dissolute  youth  went 
sinking  his  obscene  songs  through  the  moonlit  streets,  I  shuddered 


20  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

with  a  good  Piagnone's  abhorrence ;  and  I  heard  one  morning  with 
a  stern  and  solemn  joy  that  the  great  Frate  had  refused  absolution  to 
the  dying  despot  who  had  refused  freedom  to  Florence.  Those  were 
great  days  for  one  of  my  thinking,  when  Savonarola  realized  the  old 
Florentine  ideal  of  a  free  commonwealth,  with  the  Medici  banished, 
the  Pope  defied,  and  Christ  king ;  days  incredibly  dark  and  terrible, 
when  the  Frate  paid  for  his  good-will  to  us  with  his  life,  and  suffered 
by  the  Eepublic  which  he  had  restored.  Then  the  famous  siege 
came,  the  siege  of  fifteen  months,  when  Papist  and  Lutheran  united 
under  one  banner  against  us,  and  treason  did  what  all  the  forces  of 
the  Empire  had  failed  to  effect.  Yet  Florence,  the  genius  of  the 
great  democracy,  never  showed  more  glorious  than  in  that  supreme 
hour,  just  before  she  vanished  forever,  and  the  Medici  bastard  en- 
tered the  city  out  of  which  Florence  had  died,  to  be  its  liege  lord 
where  no  master  had  ever  been  openly  confessed  before.  I  could 
follow  the  Florentines  intelligently  through  all  till  that ;  but  then, 
what  suddenly  became  of  that  burning  desire  of  equality,  that  deadly 
jealousy  of  a  tyrant's  domination,  that  love  of  country  surpassing  the 
love  of  life  ?  It  is  hard  to  reconcile  ourselves  to  the  belief  that  the 
right  can  be  beaten,  that  the  spirit  of  a  generous  and  valiant  people 
can  be  broken ;  but  this  is  what  seems  again  and  again  to  happen  in 
history,  though  never  so  signally,  so  spectacularly,  as  in  Florence 
when  the  Medici  were  restored.  After  that  there  were  conspiracies 
and  attempts  of  individuals  to  throw  off  the  yoke ;  but  in  the  great 
people,  the  prostrate  body  of  the  old  democracy,  not  a  throe  of  revolt. 
Had  they  outlived  the  passion  of  their  youth  for  liberty,  or  were  they 
sunk  in  despair  before  the  odds  arrayed  against  them  ?  I  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with  the  Florentines  from  this  point ;  they  mystified 
me,  silently  suffering  under  the  Medici  for  two  hundred  years,  and 
then  sleeping  under  the  Lorrainese  for  another  century,  to  awake  in 
our  own  time  the  most  polite,  the  most  agreeable  of  the  Italians  per- 
haps, but  the  most  languid.  They  say  of  themselves,  "We  lack 
initiative ; "  and  the  foreigner  most  disposed  to  confess  his  ignorance 
cannot  help  having  heard  it  said  of  them  by  other  Italians  that 
while  the  Turinese,  Genoese,  and  Milanese,  and  even  the  Venetians, 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  21 

excel  them  in  industrial  enterprise,  they  are  less  even  than  the 
Neapolitans  in  intellectual  activity ;  and  that  when  the  capital  was 
removed  to  Eome  they  accepted  adversity  almost  with  indifference, 
and  resigned  themselves  to  a  second  place  in  everything.  I  do 
not  know  whether  this  is  true ;  there  are  some  things  against  it, 
as  that  the  Florentine  schools  are  confessedly  the  best  in  Italy, 
and  that  it  would  be  hard  anywhere  in  that  country  or  another 
to  match  the  group  of  scholars  and  writers  who  form  the  Univer- 
sity of  Florence.  These  are  not  all  Florentines,  but  they  live  in 
Florence,  where  almost  any  one  would  choose  to  live  if  he  did  not 
live  in  London,  or  Boston,  or  New  York,  or  Helena,  Montana  T. 
There  is  no  more  comfortable  city  in  the  world,  I  fancy.  But  you 
cannot  paint  comfort  so  as  to  interest  the  reader  of  a  book  of 
travel.  Even  the  lack  of  initiative  in  a  people  who  conceal  their 
adversity  under  very  good  clothes,  and  have  abolished  beggary, 
cannot  be  made  the  subject  of  a  graphic  sketch ;  one  must  go 
to  their  past  for  that. 


Yet  if  the  reader  had  time,  I  would  like  to  linger  a  little  on  our 
way  down  to  the  Via  Borgo  Santi  Apostoli,  where  it  branches  off 
into  the  Middle  Ages  out  of  Via  Tornabuoni,  not  far  from  Vieusseux's 
Circulating  Library.  For  Via  Tornabuoni  is  charming,  and  merits 
to  be  observed  for  the  ensemble  it  offers  of  the  contemporary  Floren- 
tine expression,  with  its  alluring  shops,  its  confectioners  and  cafes, 
its  florists  and  milliners,  its  dandies  and  tourists,  and,  ruggedly 
massing  up  out  of  their  midst,  the  mighty  bulk  of  its  old  Strozzi 
Palace,  mediaeval,  sombre,  superb,  tremendously  impressive  of  the 
days  when  really  a  man's  house  was  his  castle.  Everywhere  in 
Florence  the  same  sort  of  contrast  presents  itself  in  some  degree  ;  but 
nowhere  quite  so  dramatically  as  here,  where  it  seems  expressly  con- 
trived for  the  sensation  of  the  traveller  when  he  arrives  at  the  Amer- 
ican banker's  with  his  letter  of  credit  the  first  morning,  or  comes 
to  the  British  pharmacy  for  his  box  of  quinine  pills.     It  is  eminently 


22 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


the  street  of  the  tourists,  who  are  always  haunting  it  on  some 
errand.  The  best  shops  are  here,  and  the  most  English  is  spoken ; 
you  hear  our  tongue  spoken  almost  as  commonly  as  Italian  and 
much  more  loudly,  both  from  the  chest  and  through  the  nose,  whether 
the  one  is  advanced  with  British  firmness  to  divide  the  groups  of  civil 
and  military  loiterers  on  the  narrow  pavement  before  the  confectioner 
Giacosa's,  or  the  other  is  flattened  with  American  curiosity  against 
the  panes  of  the  jewellers'  windows.  There  is  not  here  the  glitter  of 
mosaics  which  fatigues  the  eye  on  the  Lungarno  or  in  Via  Borgog- 
nissanti,  nor  the  white  glare  of  new  statuary  —  or  statuettary,  rather 
—  which  renders  other  streets  impassable ;  but  there  is  a  sobered 
richness  in  the  display,  and  a  local  character  in  the  prices  which  will 
sober  the  purchaser. 

Florence  is  not  well  provided  with  spaces  for  the  out-door  lounging 
which  Italian  leisure  loves,  and  you  must  go  to  the  Cascine  for  much 

Florentine  fashion  if  you  want  it; 
but  something  of  it  is  always  rolling 
down  through  Via  Tornabuoni  in  its 
carriage  at  the  proper  hour  of  the 
day,  and  something  more  is  always 
standing  before  Giacosa's,  English- 
tailored,  Italian-mannered,  to  bow, 
and  smile,  and  comment.  I  was 
glad  that  the  sort  of  swell  whom  I 
used  to  love  in  the  Piazza  at  Venice 
abounded  in  the  narrower  limits  of 
Via  Tornabuoni.  I  was  afraid  he 
was  dead ;  but  he  graced  the  curb- 
stone there  with  the  same  lily-like 
disoccupation  and  the  same  sweet- 
ness of  aspect  which  made  the  Pro- 
curatie  Nuove  like  a  garden.  He 
was  not  without  his  small  dog  or  his 
cane  held  to  his  mouth ;  he  was  very,  very  patient  and  kind  with 
the  aged  crone  who  plays  the  part  of  Florentine  flower-girl  in  Via 


„   FLORENTINE   FLOWER-GIRL. 


A  FLORENTINE  MOSAIC. 


23 


Tornabuoni,  and  whom  I  after  saw  aiming  with  uncertain  eye  a 
boutoiiniere  of  violets  at  his  coat-lapel ;  there  was  the  same  sort  of 
calm,  heavy-eyed  beauty  looking  out  at  him  from  her  ice  or  coffee 
through  the  vast  pane  of  the  confectioner's  window,  that  stared 
sphinx-like  in  her  mystery  from  a  cushioned  corner  of  Florian's; 
and  the  officers  went  by  with  tinkling  spurs  and  sabres,  and  clicking 
boot-heels,  differing  in  nothing  but  their  Italian  uniforms  and  com- 
plexions from  the  blonde  Austrian  military  of  those  far-off  days.  I 
often  wondered  who 
or  what  those  beauti- 
ful swells  might  be, 
and  now  I  rather  won- 
der that  I  did  not  ask 
some  one  who  could 
tell  me.  But  perhaps 
it  was  not  important; 
perhaps  it  might  even 
have  impaired  their 
value  in  the  picture  of 
a  conscientious  artist 
who  can  now  leave 
them,  without  a 
qualm,  to  be  imagined 
as  rich  and  noble  as 
the  reader  likes.  Not 
all  the  frequenters  of 
Doney's    famous    cafe 

were  both,  if  one  could  trust  hearsay.  Besides  those  who  could 
afford  to  drink  the  first  sprightly  runnings  of  his  coffee-pot,  it  was 
said  that  there  was  a  genteel  class,  who,  for  the  sake  of  being  seen 
to  read  their  newspapers  there,  paid  for  the  second  decantation 
from  its  grounds,  which  comprised  what  was  left  in  the  cups  from 
the  former.  This  might  be  true  of  a  race  which  loves  a  goodly  out- 
side perhaps  a  little  better  than  we  do;  but  Doney's  is  not  the 
Doney's  of  old  days,  nor  its  coffee  so  very  good  at  first  hand.     Yet  if 


AT   DONEY'S. 


24  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

that  sort  of  self-sacrifice  goes  on  in  there,  I  do  not  object ;  it  con- 
tinues the  old  Latin  tradition  of  splendor  and  hunger  which  runs 
through  so  many  pleasant  books,  and  is  as  good  in  its  way  as  a 
beggar  at  the  gate  of  a  palace.  It  is  a  contrast ;  it  flatters  the  reader 
who  would  be  incapable  of  it ;  and  let  us  have  it.  It  is  one  of  the 
many  contrasts  in  Florence  which  I  spoke  of,  and  not  all  of  which 
there  is  time  to  point  out.  But  if  you  would  have  the  full  effect  of 
the  grimness  and  rudeness  of  the  Strozzi  Palace  (drolly  parodied,  by 
the  way,  in  a  structure  of  the  same  street  which  is  like  a  Strozzi 
Palace  on  the  stage),  look  at  that  bank  of  flowers  at  one  corner  of 
its  base,  —  roses,  carnations,  jonquils,  great  Florentine  anemones,  — 
laying  their  delicate  cheeks  against  the  savage  blocks  of  stone,  rent 
and  burst  from  their  quarry,  and  set  here  with  their  native  rudeness 
untamed  by  hammer  or  chisel. 

XL 

The  human  passions  were  wrought  almost  as  primitive  into  the 
civic  structure  of  Florence,  down  in  the  thirteenth  century,  which  you 
will  find  with  me  at  the  bottom  of  the  Borgo  Santi  Apostoli,  if  you 
like  to  come.  There  and  thereabouts  dwelt  the  Buondelmonti,  the 
Amidei,  the  Uberti,  the  Lamberti,  and  other  noble  families,  in  fast- 
nesses of  stone  and  iron  as  formidable  as  the  castles  from  which  their 
ancestors  were  dislodged  when  the  citizens  went  out  into  the  country 
around  Florence,  and  destroyed  their  strongholds  and  obliged  them 
to  come  into  the  city ;  and  thence  from  their  casements  and  towers 
they  carried  on  their  private  wars  as  conveniently  as  ever,  descend- 
ing into  the  streets,  and  battling  about  among  the  peaceful  industries 
of  the  vicinity  for  generations.  It  must  have  been  inconvenient  for 
the  industries,  but  so  far  as  one  can  understand,  they  suffered  it  just 
as  a  Kentucky  community  now  suffers  the  fighting  out  of  a  family 
feud  in  its  streets,  and  philosophically  gets  under  shelter  when  the 
shooting  begins.  It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  objected  to  some  of 
these  palaces  that  they  had  vaulted  passageways  under  their  first 
stories,  provided  with  trap-doors  to  let  the  besieged  pour  hot  water 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  25 

down  on  the  passers  below;  these  avenues  were  probably  strictly 
private,  and  the  citizens  did  not  use  them  at  times  when  family 
feeling  ran  high.  In  fact,  there  could  have  been  but  little  coining 
and  going  about  these  houses  for  any  who  did  not  belong  in  them. 
A  whole  quarter,  covering  the  space  of  several  American  city  blocks, 
would  be  given  up  to  the  palaces  of  one  family  and  its  adherents, 
in  a  manner  which  one  can  hardly  understand  without  seeing  it. 
The  Peruzzi,  for  example,  enclosed  a  Eoman  amphitheatre  with  their 
palaces,  which  still  follow  in  structure  the  circle  of  the  ancient  edi- 
fice ;  and  the  Peruzzi  were  rather  peaceable  people,  with  less  occasion 
for  fighting-room  than  many  other  Florentine  families,  —  far  less  than 
the  Buondelmonti,  Uberti,  Amidei,  Lamberti,  Gherardini,  and  others, 
whose  domestic  fortifications  seem  to  have  occupied  all  that  region 
lying  near  the  end  of  the  Ponte  Vecchio.  They  used  to  fight  from 
their  towers  on  three  corners  of  Por  San  Maria  above  the  heads  of 
the  people  passing  to  and  from  the  bridge,  and  must  have  occasioned 
a  great  deal  of  annoyance  to  the  tourists  of  that  day.  Nevertheless, 
they  seem  to  have  dwelt  in  very  tolerable  enmity  together  till  one 
day  when  a  Florentine  gentleman  invited  all  the  noble  youth  of  the 
city  to  a  banquet  at  his  villa,  where,  for  their  greater  entertainment, 
there  was  a  buffoon  playing  his  antics.  This  poor  soul  seems  not  to 
have  been  a  person  of  better  taste  than  some  other  humorists,  and 
he  thought  it  droll  to  snatch  away  the  plate  of  Uberto  degl'  Infan- 
gati,  who  had  come  with  Buondelmonte,  at  which  Buondelmonte 
became  furious,  and  resented  the  insult  to  his  friend,  probably  in 
terms  that  disabled  the  politeness  of  those  who  laughed,  for  it  is 
recorded  that  Oddo  di  Arrigo  dei  Fifanti,  "a  proud  and  resolute 
man,"  became  so  incensed  as  to  throw  a  plate  and  its  contents  into 
Uberto's  face.  The  tables  were  overturned,  and  Buondelmonte 
stabbed  Oddo  with  a  knife ;  at  which  point  the  party  seems  to  have 
broken  up,  and  Oddo  returned  to  Florence  from  Campi,  where  the 
banquet  was  given,  and  called  a  family  council  to  plot  vengeance. 
But  a  temperate  spirit  prevailed  in  this  senate,  and  it  was  decided 
that  Buondelmonte,  instead  of  dying,  should  marry  Oddo's  niece, 
Reparata  degli   Amidei,  differently  described  by  history  as  a   plain 


26  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

girl,  and  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and  accomplished  damsels 
of  the  city,  of  a  very  noble  and  consular  family.  Buondelmonte, 
a  handsome  and  gallant  cavalier,  but  a  weak  will,  as  appears 
from  all  that  happened,  agreed  to  this,  and  everything  was  happily 
arranged,  till  one  day  when  he  was  riding  by  the  house  of  Forese 
Donati.  Monna  Gualdrada  Donati  was  looking  out  of  the  win- 
dow, and  possibly  expecting  the  young  man.  She  called  to  him, 
and  when  he  had  alighted  and  come  into  the  house  she  began  to 
mock  him. 

"  Cheer  up,  young  lover !  Your  wedding-day  is  coining,  and  you 
will  soon  be  happy  with  your  bride." 

"  You  know  very  well,"  said  Buondelmonte,  "  that  this  marriage 
was  a  thing  I  could  not  get  out  of." 

"Oh,  indeed!"  cried  Monna  Gualdrada.  "As  if  you  did  not  care 
for  a  pretty  wife ! "  And  then  it  was,  we  may  suppose,  that  she 
hinted  those  things  she  is  said  to  have  insinuated  against  Separata's 
looks  and  her  fitness  otherwise  for  a  gentleman  like  Buondelmonte. 
"If  I  had  known  you  were  in  such  haste  to  marry  —  but  God's  will 
be  done  !  We  cannot  have  things  as  we  like  in  this  world  ! "  And 
Machiavelli  says  that  the  thing  Monna  Gualdrada  had  set  her  heart 
on  was  Buondelmonte's  marriage  with  her  daughter,  "  but  either 
through  carelessness,  or  because  she  thought  it  would  do  any  time, 
she  had  not  mentioned  it  to  any  one."  She  added,  probably  with  an 
affected  carelessness,  that  the  Donati  were  of  rather  better  lineage 
than  the  Amidei,  though  she  did  not  know  whether  he  would  have 
thought  her  Beatrice  as  pretty  as  Eeparata.  Then  suddenly  she 
brought  him  face  to  face  with  the  girl,  radiantly  beautiful,  the  most 
beautiful  in  Florence.  "This  is  the  wife  I  was  keeping  for  you," 
said  Monna  Gualdrada ;  and  she  must  have  known  her  ground  well, 
for  she  let  the  poor  young  man  understand  that  her  daughter  had 
■long  been  secretly  in  love  with  him.  Malespini  tells  us  that  Buon- 
delmonte was  tempted  by  a  diabolical  spirit  to  break  faith  at  this 
sight ;  the  devil  accounted  for  a  great  many  things  then  to  which 
we  should  not  now,  perhaps,  assign  so  black  an  origin.  "And  I 
would  very  willingly  marry  her/'  he  faltered,  "  if  I  were  not  bound 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  27 

by  that  solemn  promise  to  the  Amidei ; "  and  Monna  Gualdrada  now 
plied  the  weak  soul  with  such  arguments  and  reasons,  in  such  wise 
as  women  can  use  them,  that  he  yielded,  and  giving  his  hand  to 
Beatrice,  he  did  not  rest  till  they  were  married.  Then  the  Amidei, 
the  Uberti,  the  Lamberti,  and  the  Fifanti,  and  others  who  were  out- 
raged in  their  cousinship  or  friendship  by  this  treachery  and  insult 
to  Eeparata,  assembled  in  the  church  of  Santa  Maria  sopra  Porta  to 
take  counsel  again  for  vengeance.  Some  were  of  opinion  that  Buon- 
delmonte  should  be  cudgelled,  and  thus  publicly  put  to  shame ;  others 
that  he  should  be  wounded  and  disfigured  in  the  face  ;  but  Mosca 
Lamberti  rose  and  said :  "  There  is  no  need  of  all  these  words.  If 
you  strike  him  or  disfigure  him,  get  your  graves  ready  to  hide  in. 
Cosa  fatta  capo  ha ! "  With  which  saying  he  advised  them  to  make 
an  end  of  Buondelmonte  altogether.  His  words  had  the  acceptance 
that  they  would  now  have  in  a  Kentucky  family  council,  and  they 
agreed  to  kill  Buondelmonte  when  he  should  come  to  fetch  home  his 
bride.  On  Easter  morning,  in  the  year  1215,  they  were  waiting  for 
him  in  the  house  of  the  Amidei,  at  the  foot  of  the  Ponte  Vecchio ; 
and  when  they  saw  him  come  riding,  richly  dressed  in  white,  on  a 
white  palfrey,  over  the  bridge,  and  "  fancying,"  says  Machiavelli, 
"  that  such  a  wrong  as  breaking  an  engagement  could  be  so  easily 
forgotten,"  they  sallied  out  to  the  statue  of  Mars  which  used  to  be 
there.  As  Buondelmonte  reached  the  group,  —  it  must  have  been, 
for  all  his  courage,  with  a  face  as  white  as  his  mantle,  —  Schiatta 
degli  Uberti  struck  him  on  the  head  with  a  stick,  so  that  he  dropped 
stunned  from  his  palfrey.  Then  Oddo  di  Arrigo,  whom  he  had 
stabbed,  and  Mosca  Lamberti,  who  had  pronounced  his  sentence,  and 
Lambertaccio  Amidei,  "  and  one  of  the  Gangolandi,"  ran  and  cut  his 
throat. 

There  arose  a  terrible  tumult  in  the  city,  and  the  girl  whose  fatal 
beauty  had  wrought  this  horror,  governing  herself  against  her 
woman's  weakness  with  supernatural  strength,  mounted  the  funeral 
car  beside  her  lover's  body,  and  taking  his  head  into  her  lap,  with 
his  blood  soaking  her  bridal  robes,  was  drawn  through  the  city 
everywhere,  crying  for  vengeance. 


28  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

From  that  hour,  they  tell  us,  the  factions  that  had  long  tormented 
Florence  took  new  names,  and  those  who  had  sided  with  the  Buon- 
delmonti  and  the  Donati  for  the  Pope  against  the  Emperor  became 
Guelphs,  while  the  partisans  of  the  Amidei  and  the  Empire  became 
Ghibellines,  and  began  that  succession  of  reciprocal  banishments 
which  kept  a  good  fourth  of  the  citizens  in  exile  for  three  hundred 
years. 

XII. 

What  impresses  one  in  this  and  the  other  old  Florentine  stories  is 
the  circumstantial  minuteness  with  which  they  are  told,  and  their 
report  has  an  air  of  simple  truth  very  different  from  the  literary 
factitiousness  which  one  is  tempted  to  in  following  them.  After  six 
centuries  the  passions  are  as  living,  the  characters  as  distinct,  as  if 
the  thing  happened  yesterday.  Each  of  the  persons  stands  out  a 
very  man  or  woman,  in  that  clear,  strong  light  of  the  early  day 
which  they  move  through.  From  the  first  the  Florentines  were  able 
to  hit  each  other  oft*  with  an  accuracy  which  comes  of  the  southern 
habit  of  living  much  together  in  public,  and  one  cannot  question 
these  lineaments.  Buondelmonte,  Mosca  Lamberti,  Monna  Gual- 
drada,  and  even  that  "  one  of  the  Gangolandi,"  how  they  possess  the 
imagination  !  Their  palaces  still  rise  there  in  the  grim,  narrow  streets, 
and  seem  no  older  in  that  fine  Florentine  air  than  houses  of  fifty 
years  ago  elsewhere.  They  were  long  since  set  apart,  of  course,  to 
other  uses.  The  chief  palace  of  the  Buondelmonti  is  occupied  by  an 
insurance  company ;  there  is  a  little  shop  for  the  sale  of  fruit  and 
vegetables  niched  into  the  grand  Gothic  portal  of  the  tower,  and 
one  is  pushed  in  among  the  pears  and  endives  by  the  carts  which 
take  up  the  whole  street  from  wall  to  wall  in  passing.  The  Lamberti 
palace  was  confiscated  by  the  Guelph  party,  and  was  long  used  by 
the  Art  of  Silk  for  its  guild  meetings.  Now  it  is  a  fire-engine  house, 
where  a  polite  young  lieutenant  left  his  architectural  drawings  to 
show  us  some  frescos  of  Giotto  lately  uncovered  there  over  an  old 
doorway.  Over  a  portal  outside  the  arms  of  the  guild  were  beauti- 
fully carved  by  Donatello,  as  you  may  still  see ;  and  in  a  lofty  angle 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  29 

of  the  palace  the  exquisite  loggia  of  the  family  shows  its  columns 
and  balustrade  against  the  blue  sky. 

I  say  blue  sky  for  the  sake  of  the  color,  and  because  that  is 
expected  of  one  in  mentioning  the  Florentine  sky;  but,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  do  not  believe  it  was  blue  half  a  dozen  days  during  the 
winter  of  1882-83.  The  prevailing  weather  was  gray,  and  down  in 
the  passages  about  the  bases  of  these  mediaeval  structures  the  sun 
never  struck,  and  the  point  of  the  mediaeval  nose  must  always  have 
been  very  cold  from  the  end  of  November  till  the  beginning  of 
April. 

The  tradition  of  an  older  life  continues  into  the  present  every- 
where ;  only  in  Italy  it  is  a  little  more  evident,  and  one  realizes  in 
the  discomfort  of  the  poor,  who  have  succeeded  to  these  dark  and 
humid  streets,  the  discomfort  of  the  rich  who  once  inhabited  them, 
and  whose  cast-off  manners  have  been  left  there.  Monna  Gualdrada 
would  not  now  call  out  to  Buondelmonte  riding  under  her  window, 
and  make  him  come  in  and  see  her  beautiful  daughter ;  but  a  woman 
of  the  class  which  now  peoples  the  old  Donati  houses  might  do  it. 

1  walked  through  the  Borgo  Santi  Apostoli  for  the  last  time  late 
in  March,  and  wandered  round  in  the  winter,  still  lingering  in  that 
wonderful  old  nest  of  palaces,  before  I  came  out  into  the  cheerful 
bustle  of  For  San  Maria,  the  street  which  projects  the  glitter  of  its 
jewellers'  shops  quite  across  the  Ponte  Vecchio.  One  of  these,  on 
the  left  corner,  just  before  you  reach  the  bridge,  is  said  to  occupy  the 
site  of  the  loggia  of  the  Amidei ;  and  if  you  are  young  and  strong, 
you  may  still  see  them  waiting  there  for  Buondelmonte.  But  my 
eyes  are  not  very  good  any  more,  and  I  saw  only  the  amiable  modern 
Florentine  crowd,  swollen  by  a  vast  number  of  English  and  American 
tourists,  who  at  this  season  begin  to  come  up  from  Koine.  There  are 
a  good  many  antiquarian  and  bricabrac  shops  in  Por  San  Maria ; 
but  the  towers  which  the  vanished  families  used  to  fight  from  have 
been  torn  down,  so  that  there  is  comparatively  little  danger  from 
a  chance  bolt  there. 


30 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


ACROSS  THE   PONTE   VECCHJCO. 


XIII. 


One  of  the  furious  Ghibelline  houses  of  this  quarter  were  the 
Gherardini,  who  are  said  to  have  become  the  Fitzgeralds  of  Ireland, 
whither  they  went  in  their  exile,  and  where  they  enjoyed  their  fight- 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  31 

ing  privileges  long  after  those  of  their  friends  and  acquaintances 
remaining  in  Florence  had  been  cut  off.  The  city  annals  would  no 
doubt  tell  us  what  end  the  Amidei  and  the  Lamberti  made ;  from 
the  Uberti  came  the  great  Farinata,  who,  in  exile  with  the  other 
G-hibellines,  refused  with  magnificent  disdain  to  join  them  in  the 
destruction  of  Florence.  But  the  history  of  the  Buondelmonti  has 
become  part  of  the  history  of  the  world.  One  branch  of  the  family 
migrated  from  Tuscany  to  Corsica,  where  they  changed  their  name 
to  Buonaparte,  and  from  them  came  the  great  Napoleon.  As  to 
that  "one  of  the  Gangolandi,"  he  teases  me  into  vain  conjecture, 
lurking  in  the  covert  of  his  family  name,  an  elusive  personality 
which  I  wish  some  poet  would  divine  for  us.  The  Donati  afterward 
made  a  marriage  which  brought  them  into  as  lasting  remembrance 
as  the  Buondelmonti;  and  one  visits  their  palaces  for  the  sake  of 
Dante  rather  than  Napoleon.  They  enclose,  with  the  Alighieri 
house  in  which  the  poet  was  born,  the  little  Piazza  Donati,  which 
you  reach  by  going  up  the  Corso  to  the  Borgo  degli  Albizzi,  and 
over  against  them  on  that  street  the  house  of  the  Portinari  stood, 
where  Beatrice  lived,  and  where  it  must  have  been  that  she  first 
appeared  to  the  rapt  boy  who  was  to  be  the  world's  Dante,  "clothed 
in  a  most  noble  color,  a  modest  and  becoming  crimson,  garlanded 
and  adorned  in  such  wise  as  befitted  her  very  youthful  age."  The 
palace  of  the  Salviati  —  in  which  Cosimo  I.  was  born,  and  in  which  his 
father,  Giovanni  delle  Bande  Nere,  taught  the  child  courage  by  fling- 
ing him  from  an  upper  window  into  the  arms  of  a  servitor  below  — 
has  long  occupied  the  site  of  the  older  edifice ;  and  the  Piazza  Donati, 
whatever  dignity  it  may  once  have  had,  is  now  nothing  better  than 
a  shabby  court.  The  back  windows  of  the  tall  houses  surrounding 
it  look  into  it  when  not  looking  into  one  another,  and  see  there  a 
butcher's  shop,  a  smithy,  a  wagon-maker's,  and  an  inn  for  peasants 
with  stabling.  On  a  day  when  I  was  there,  a  wash  stretched  flutter- 
ing across  the  rear  of  Dante's  house,  and  the  banner  of  a  green  vine 
trailed  from  a  loftier  balcony.  From  one  of  the  Donati  casements 
an  old  woman  in  a  purple  knit  jacket  was  watching  a  man  repainting 
an*  omnibus  in  front  of  the  wagon-shop ;  a  great  number  of  canaries 


32  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

sang  in  cages  all  round  the  piazza ;  a  wrinkled  peasant  with  a  faded 
green  cotton  umbrella  under  his  arm  gave  the  place  an  effect  of  rustic 
sojourn ;  and  a  diligence  that  two  playful  stable-boys  were  long  in 
hitching  up  drove  jingling  out,  with  its  horses  in  brass-studded  head- 
stalls, past  where  I  stood  under  the  fine  old  arches  of  the  gateway. 
I  had  nothing  to  object  to  all  this,  nor  do  I  suppose  that  this  last 
state  of  his  old  neighborhood  much  vexes  the  poet  now.  It  was 
eminently  picturesque,  with  a  sort  of  simple  cheerfulness  of  aspect, 
the  walls  of  the  houses  in  the  little  piazza  being  of  different  shades 
of  buff,  with  window-shutters  in  light  green  opening  back  upon  them 
from  those  casements  where  the  shrieking  canaries  hung.  The  place 
had  that  tone  which  characterizes  so  many  city  perspectives  in  Italy, 
and  especially  Florence,  —  which  makes  the  long  stretch  of  Via 
Borgognissanti  so  smiling,  and  bathes  the  sweep  of  Lungarno  in  a 
sunny  glow  wholly  independent  of  the  state  of  the  weather.  As  you 
stroll  along  one  of  these  light-yellow  avenues  you  say  to  yourself, 
"  Ah,  this  is  Florence ! "  And  then  suddenly  you  plunge  into  the 
gray-brown  gloom  of  such  a  street  as  the  Borgo  degli  Albizzi,  with 
lofty  palaces  climbing  in  vain  toward  the  sun,  and  frowning  upon 
the  street  below  with  fronts  of  stone,  rude  or  sculptured,  but  always 
stern  and  cold ;  and  then  that,  too,  seems  the  only  Florence.  They 
are  in  fact  equally  Florentine ;  but  I  suppose  one  expresses  the 
stormy  yet  poetic  life  of  the  old  commonwealth,  and  the  other  the 
serene,  sunny  commonplace  of  the  Lorrainese  regime. 

I  was  not  sorry  to  find  this  the  tone  of  Piazza  Donati,  into  which 
I  had  eddied  from  the  austerity  of  Borgo  degli  Albizzi.  It  really 
belongs  to  a  much  remoter  period  than  the  older-looking  street, — 
to  the  Florence  that  lingers  architecturally  yet  in  certain  narrow 
avenues  to  the  Mercato  Vecchio,  where  the  vista  is  broken  by  in- 
numerable pent-roofs,  balconies,  and  cornices ;  and  a  throng  of 
operatic  figures  in  slouch  hats  and  short  cloaks  are  so  very  improba- 
bly bent  on  any  realistic  business,  that  they  seem  to  be  masquerading 
there  in  the  mysterious  fumes  of  the  cook-shops.  Yet  I  should  be 
loath,  for  no  very  tangible  reason,  to  have  Piazza  Donati  like  one  of 
these  avenues  or  in  any  wise  different  from  what  it  is ;  certainly  I 


A   STREET    IN    FLORENCK 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC. 


35 


should  not  like  to  have  the  back  of  Dante's  house  smartened  up  like 
the  front,  which  looks  into  the  Piazza  San  Martino.  I  do  not  com- 
plain that  the  restoration  is  bad ;  it  is  even  very  good,  for  all  that 
I  know;  but  the  unrestored  back  is  better,  and  I  have  a  general 
feeling  that  the  past  ought  to  be  allowed  to  tumble  down  in  peace, 
though  I  have  no  doubt  that  whenever  this  happened  I  should  be 
one  of  the  first  to  cry 
out  against  the  barba- 
rous indifference  that 
suffered  it.  I  dare 
say  that  in  a  few  hun- 
dred years,  when  the  fact  of 
the  restoration  is  forgotten,  the 
nineteenth-century  medisevalism  of 
Dante's  house  will  be  acceptable 
to  the  most  fastidious  tour- 
ist. I  tried  to  get  into  the 
house,  which  is  open  to  the 
public  at  certain  hours  on  cer- 
tain days,  but  I  always  came 
at  ten  on  Saturday,  when  I. ought 
to  have  come  at  two  on  Monday,  or 
the  like ;  and  so  at  last  I  had  to  con- 
tent myself  with  the  interior  of  the  little 
church  of  San  Martino,  where  Dante  was 
married,  half  a  stone's-cast  from  where 
he  was  born.  The  church  was  closed, 
and  I  asked  a  cobbler,  who  had  brought 

his  work  to  the  threshold  of  his  shop  hard  by,  for  the  sake  of  the 
light,  where  the  sacristan  lived.  He  answered  me  unintelligibly, 
without  leaving  off  for  a  moment  his  furious  hammering  at  the 
shoe  in  his  lap.  He  must  have  been  asked  that  question  a  great 
many  times,  and  I  do  not  know  that  I  should  have  taken  any 
more  trouble  in  his  place ;  but  a  woman  in  a  fruit-stall  next  door 
had  pity  on  me,  knowing  doubtless  that  I  was  interested  in  San 


SAN    .MARTINO. 


EXTERIOR. 


36 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


Martino  on  account  of  the  wedding,  and  sent  me  to  No.   1.     But 
No.  1  was  a  house  so  improbably  genteel  that  I  had  not  the  courage 
to  ring  ;  and  I  asked  the  grocer  alongside  for  a  better  direction.     He 
did  not  know  how  to  give  it,  but  he  sent  me  to  the  local  apothecary, 
who  in  turn  sent  me  to  another  number.     Here  another  shoemaker, 
friendlier  or  idler  than  the  first,  left  off  gossiping  with  some  friends 
of  his,  and  showed  me  the  right  door  at  last  in  the  rear  of 
the  church.     My  pull  at  the  bell  shot  the  sacristan's  head 
out  of  the  fourth-story  window  in  the  old  way  that 
always  delighted  me,  and  I  perceived  even  at  that 
distance  that  he  was  a  man  perpetually  fired  with 
fiKfc^,.  zeal  for  his  church  by  the  curiosity  of  strangers.     1 

could  certainly  see  the  church,  yes ;  he  would 
come  down  instantly  and  open  it  from  the  in- 
side if  I  would  do  him  the  grace  to  close  his 
own  door  from  the  outside.  I  complied  will- 
ingly, and  in  another  moment  I  stood 
within  the  little  temple,  where,  upon  the 
whole,  for  the  sake  of  the  emotion  that 
divine  genius,  majestic  sorrow,  and  im- 
mortal fame  can  accumulate  within 
one's  average  commonplaceness,  it 
is  as  well  to  stand  as  any  other 
spot  on  earth.  It  is  a  very  little 
place,  with  one-third  of  the  space 
divided  from  the  rest  by  an  iron- 
tipped  wooden  screen.  Behind 
this  is  the  simple  altar,  and  here 
Dante  Alighieri  and  Gemma  Do- 
nati  were  married.  In  whatever 
state  the  walls  were  then,  they 
are  now  plainly  whitewashed,  though  in  one  of  the  lunettes  form- 
ing a  sort  of  frieze  half  round  the  top  was  a  fresco  said  to  repre- 
sent the  espousals  of  the  poet.  The  church  was  continually  visited, 
the  sacristan  told  me,  by  all  sorts  of   foreigners,  English,  Trench, 


door  of  dante's  house. 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC. 


37 


Germans,  Spaniards,  even  Americans,  but  especially  Kussians,  the 
most  impassioned  of  all  for  it.  One  of  this  nation,  one  Russian 
eminent  even  among  his  impassioned  race,  spent  several  hours  in 
looking  at  that  picture,  taking  his  stand  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
by  which  the  sacris- 
tan descended  from 
his  lodging  into  the 
church.  He  showed 
me  the  very  spot ;  I 
do  not  know  why, 
unless  he  took  me  for 
another  Russian,  and 
thought  my  pride  in 
a  compatriot  so  im- 
passioned might  have 
some  effect  upon  the 
fee  I  was  to  give  him. 
He  was  a  credulous 
sacristan,  and  I  can- 
not find  any  evidence 
in  Miss  Horner's 
faithful  and  trusty 
"  Walks  in  Florence  " 
that  there  is  a  fresco 
in  that  church  repre- 
senting the  espousals  of  Dante.  The  paintings  in  the  lunettes  are 
by  a  pupil  of  Masaccio's,  and  deal  with  the  good  works  of  the 
twelve  Good  Men  of  San  Martino,  who,  ever  since  1441,  have  had 
charge  of  a  fund  for  the  relief  of  such  shamefaced  poor  as  were 
unwilling  to  ask  alms.  Prince  Strozzi  and  other  patricians  of  Flor- 
ence are  at  present  among  these  Good  Men,  so  the  sacristan  said ; 
and  there  is  an  iron  contribution-box  at  the  church  door,  with  an 
inscription  promising  any  giver  indulgence,  successively  guaranteed 
by  four  popes,  of  twenty-four  hundred  years ;  which  seemed  really  to 
make  it  worth  one's  while. 


CHURCH   WHERE   DANTE   WAS   MARRIED. 
SAN   MARTINO. 


1  i  7  3  II  5 


38  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

XIV. 

In  visiting  these  scenes,  one  cannot  but  wonder  at  the  small  com- 
pass in  which  the  chief  facts  of  Dante's  young  life,  suitably  to  the 
home-keeping  character  of  the  time  and  race,  occurred.  There  he 
was  born,  there  he  was  bred,  and  there  he  was  married  to  Gemma 
Donati  after  Beatrice  Portinari  died.  Beatrice's  father  lived  just 
across  the  way  from  the  Donati  houses,  and  the  Donati  houses  ad- 
joined the  house  where  Dante  grew  up  with  his  widowed  mother. 
He  saw  Beatrice  in  her  father's  house,  and  he  must  often  have  been 
in  the  house  of  Manetto  de'  Donati  as  a  child.  As  a  youth  he  no 
doubt  made  love  to  Gemma  at  her  casement;  and  here  they  must 
have  dwelt  after  they  were  married,  and  she  began  to  lead  him  a 
restless  and  unhappy  life,  being  a  fretful  and  foolish  woman,  by  the 
accounts. 

One  realizes  all  this  there  with  a  distinctness  which  the  clear- 
ness of  the  Italian  atmosphere  permits.  In  that  air  events  do  not 
seem  to  age  any  more  than  edifices ;  a  life,  like  a  structure,  of  six 
hundred  years  ago  seems  of  yesterday,  and  one  feels  toward  the 
Donati  as  if  that  troublesome  family  were  one's  own  contemporaries. 
The  evil  they  brought  on  Dante  was  not  domestic  only,  but  they 
and  their  party  were  the  cause  of  his  exile  and  his  barbarous  sen- 
tence in  the  process  of  the  evil  times  which  brought  the  Bianchi  and 
Neri  to  Florence. 

There  is  in  history  hardly  anything  so  fantastically  malicious, 
so  tortuous,  so  perverse,  as  the  series  of  chances  that  ended  in 
his  banishment.  Nothing  could  apparently  have  been  more  re- 
mote from  him,  to  all  human  perception,  than  that  quarrel  of  a 
Pistoja  family,  in  which  the  children  of  Messer  Cancelliere's  first 
wife,  Bianca,  called  themselves  Bianchi,  and  the  children  of  the 
second  called  themselves  Neri,  simply  for  contrary-mindedness'  sake. 
But  let  us  follow  it,  and  see  how  it  reaches  the  poet  and  finally 
delivers  him  over  to  a  life  of  exile  and  misery.  One  of  these  Can- 
cellieri  of  Pistoja  falls  into  a  quarrel  with  another  and  wounds  him 
with  his  sword.     They  are  both  boys,  or  hardly  more,  and  the  father 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  39 

of  the  one  who  struck  the  blow  bids  him  go  to  his  kinsmen  and  beg 
their  forgiveness.  But  when  he  comes  to  them  the  father  of  the 
wounded  youth  takes  him  out  to  the  stable,  and  striking  off  the 
offending  hand  on  a  block  there,  flings  it  into  his  face.  "  Go  back  to 
your  father  and  tell  him  that  hurts  are  healed  with  iron,  not  with 
words." 

The  news  of  this  cruel  deed  throws  all  Pistoja  into  an  in- 
comprehensible mediaeval  frenzy.  The  citizens  arm  and  divide 
themselves  into  Bianchi  and  Neri;  the  streets  become  battle-fields. 
Finally  some  cooler  heads  ask  Florence  to  interfere.  Florence  is 
always  glad  to  get  a  finger  into  the  affairs  of  her  neighbors,  and  to 
quiet  Pistoja  she  calls  the  worst  of  the  Bianchi  and  Neri  to  her. 
Her  own  factions  take  promptly  to  the  new  names ;  the  Guelphs 
have  long  ruled  the  city ;  the  Ghibellines  have  been  a  whole  genera- 
tion in  exile.  But  the  Neri  take  up  the  old  Ghibelline  role  of 
invoking  foreign  intervention,  with  Corso  Donati  at  their  head,  —  a 
brave  man,  but  hot,  proud,  and  lawless.  Dante  is  of  the  Bianchi 
party,  which  is  that  of  the  liberals  and  patriots,  and  in  this  quality 
he  goes  to  Rome  to  plead  with  the  Pope  to  use  his  good  offices  for 
the  peace  and  freedom  of  Florence.  In  his  absence  he  is  banished 
for  two  years  and  heavily  fined ;  then  he  is  banished  for  life,  and 
will  be  burned  if  he  comes  back.  His  party  comes  into  power, 
but  the  sentence  is  never  repealed,  and  in  the  despair  of  exile 
Dante,  too,  invokes  the  stranger's  help.  He  becomes  Nero;  he 
dies  Ghibelline. 

I  walked  up  from  the  other  Donati  houses  through  the  Via  Borgo 
degli  Albizzi  to  the  Piazza  San  Pier  Maggiore  to  look  at  the  trun- 
cated tower  of  Corso  Donati,  in  which  he  made  his  last  stand  against 
the  people  when  summoned  by  their  Podesta  to  answer  for  all  his 
treasons  and  seditions.  He  fortified  the  adjoining  houses,  and  em- 
battled the  whole  neighborhood,  galling  his  besiegers  in  the  streets 
below  with  showers  of  stones  and  arrows.  They  set  fire  to  his  for- 
tress, and  then  he  escaped  through  the  city  wall  into  the  open 
country,  but  was  hunted  down  and  taken  by  his  enemies.  On  the 
way  back  to  Florence  lie  flung  himself  from  his  horse,  that  they 


40  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

might  not  have  the  pleasure  of  triumphing  with  him' through  the 
streets,  and  the  soldier  in  charge  of  him  was  surprised  into  running 
him  through  with  his  lance,  as  Corso  intended.  This  is  the  story 
that  some  tell ;  but  others  say  that  his  horse  ran  away,  dragging  him 
over  the  road  by  his  foot,  which  caught  in  his  stirrup,  and  the  guard 
killed  him,  seeing  him  already  hurt  to  death.  Dante  favors  the 
latter  version  of  his  end,  and  sees  him  in  hell,  torn  along  at  the  heels 
of  a  beast,  whose  ceaseless  flight  is  toward  "  the  valley  where  never 
mercy  is." 

The  poet  had  once  been  the  friend  as  well  as  brother-in-law  of  Corso, 
but  had  turned  against  him  when  Corso's  lust  of  power  threatened 
the  liberties  of  Florence.  You  must  see  this  little  space  of  the  city 
to  understand  how  intensely  narrow  and  local  the  great  poet  was  in 
his  hates  and  loves,  and  how  considerably  he  has  populated  hell  and 
purgatory  with  his  old  neighbors  and  acquaintance.  Among  those 
whom  he  puts  in  Paradise  was  that  sister  of  Corso's,  the  poor  Pic- 
carda,  whose  story  is  one  of  the  most  pathetic  and  pious  legends  of 
that  terrible  old  Florence.  The  vain  and  worldly  life  which  she  saw 
around  her  had  turned  her  thoughts  toward  heaven,  and  she  took 
the  veil  in  the  convent  of  Santa  Chiara.  Her  brother  was  then  at 
Bologna,  but  he  repaired  straightway  to  Florence  with  certain  of  his 
followers,  forced  the  convent,  and  dragging  his  sister  forth  amid  the 
cries  and  prayers  of  the  nuns,  gave  her  to  wife  to  Eosellino  della 
Tosa,  a  gentleman  to  whom  he  had  promised  her.  She,  in  the  bridal 
garments  with  which  he  had  replaced  her  nun's  robes,  fell  on  her 
knees  and  implored  the  succor  of  her  Heavenly  Spouse,  and  suddenly 
her  beautiful  body  was  covered  with  a  loathsome  leprosy,  and  in  a 
few  days  she  died  inviolate.  Some  will  have  it  that  she  merely  fell 
into  a  slow  infirmity,  and  so  pined  away.  Corso  Donati  was  the 
brother  of  Dante's  wife,  and  without  ascribing  to  Gemma  more  of  his 
quality  than  Piccarda's,  one  may  readily  perceive  that  the  poet  had 
not  married  into  a  comfortable  family. 

In  the  stump  of  the  old  tower  which  I  had  come  to  see,  I  found  a 
poulterer's  shop,  bloody  and  evil-smelling,  and  two  frowzy  girls 
picking  chickens.     In  the  wall  there  is  a  tablet  signed  by  the  Messer 


A  FLORENTINE  MOSAIC. 


41 


Capitani  of  the  Guelph  Party,  forbidding  any  huckster  to  sell  his 
wares  in  that  square  under  pain  of  a  certain  fine.  The  place  now 
naturally  abounds  in  them. 

The   Messer   Capitani  are   all   dead,   with   their   party,  and    the 
hucksters  are  no  longer  afraid. 


JOHN   OP   BOLOGNA'S   DEVIL. 


**v.  -  • 


42 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


XV. 


JOB,  my  part,  I  find  it  hard  to 
be  serious  about  the  tragedy  of 
a  people  who  seem,  as  one 
looks  back  at  them  in  their 
history,  to  have  lived  in  such 
perpetual  broil  as  the  Floren- 
tines. They  cease  to  be  even 
pathetic ;  they  become  absurd, 
and  tempt  the  observer  to  a  cer- 
tain mood  of  triviality,  by  their 
indefatigable  antics  in  cutting  and 
thrusting,  chopping  off  heads,  mutilat- 
ing, burning,  and  banishing.  But  I  have  often  thought 
that  we  must  get  a  false  impression  of  the  past  by  the  laws  gov- 
erning perspective,  in  which  the  remoter  objects  are  inevitably 
pressed  together  in  their  succession,  and  the  spaces  between  are 
ignored.  In  looking  at  a  painting,  these  spaces  are  imagined ; 
but  in  history,  the  objects,  the  events  are  what  alone  make  their 
appeal,  and  there  seems  nothing  else.  It  must  always  remain  for 
the  reader  to  revise  his  impressions,  and  rearrange  them,  so  as 
to  give  some  value  to  conditions  as  well  as  to  occurrences.  It 
looks  very  much,  at  first  glance,  as  if  the  Florentines  had  no  peace 
from  the  domination  of  the  Romans  to  the  domination  of  the  Medici. 
But  in  all  that  time  they  had  been  growing  in  wealth,  power,  the 
arts  and  letters,  and  were  constantly  striving  to  realize  in  their  state 
the  ideal  which  is  still  our  only  political  aim,  ■ — • "  a  government  of 
the  people  by  the  people  for  the  people."  Whoever  opposed  himself, 
his  interests  or  his  pride,  to  that  ideal,  was  destroyed  sooner  or  later; 
and  it  appears  that  if  there  had  been  no  foreign  interference,  the  one- 
man  power  would  never  have  been  fastened  on  Florence.  We  must 
account,  therefore,  not  only  for  seasons  of  repose  not  obvious  in  his- 
tory, but  for  a  measure  of  success  in  the  realization  of  her  political 
ideal.     The  feudal   nobles,  forced   into   the  city  from   their   petty 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  43 

sovereignties  beyond  its  gates;  the  rich  merchants  and  bankers, 
creators  and  creatures  of  its  prosperity ;  the  industrious  and  power- 
ful guilds  of  artisans ;  the  populace  of  unskilled  laborers,  —  authority 
visited  each  in  turn  ;  but  no  class  could  long  keep  it  from  the  others, 
and  no  man  from  all  the  rest.  The  fluctuations  were  violent  enough, 
but  they  only  seem  incessant  through  the  necessities  of  perspective ; 
and  somehow,  in  the  most  turbulent  period,  there  was  peace  enough 
for  the  industries  to  fruit  and  the  arts  to  flower.  Now  and  then  a 
whole  generation  passed  in  which  tnere  was  no  upheaval,  though  it 
must  be  owned  that  these  generations  seem  few.  A  life  of  the  ordi- 
nary compass  witnessed  so  many  atrocious  scenes,  that  Dante,  who 
peopled  his  Inferno  with  his  neighbors  and  fellow-citizens,  had  but 
to  study  their  manners  and  customs  to  give  life  to  his  picture. 
Forty  years  after  his  exile,  when  the  Florentines  rose  to  drive  out 
Walter  of  Brienne,  the  Duke  of  Athens,  whom  they  had  made  their 
ruler,  and  who  had  tried  to  make  himself  their  master  by  a  series  of 
cruel  oppressions,  they  stormed  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  where  he  had 
taken  refuge,  and  demanded  certain  of  his  bloody  minions  ;  and  when 
his  soldiers  thrust  one  of  these  out  among  them,  they  cut  him  into 
small  pieces,  and  some  tore  the  quivering  fragments  with  their 
teeth. 

XVI. 

The  savage  lurks  so  near  the  surface  in  every  man  that  a  constant 
watch  must  be  kept  upon  the  passions  and  impulses,  or  he  leaps  out 
in  his  war-paint,  and  the  poor  integument  of  civilization  that  held 
him  is  flung  aside  like  a  useless  garment.  The  Florentines  were  a 
race  of  impulse  and  passion,  and  the  mob  was  merely  the  frenzy  of 
that  popular  assemblage  by  which  the  popular  will  made  itself 
known,  the  suffrage  being  a  thing  as  yet  imperfectly  understood  and 
only  secondarily  exercised.  Yet  the  peacefulest  and  apparently  the 
wholesomest  time  known  to  the  historians  was  that  which  followed 
the  expulsion  of  the  Duke  of  Athens,  when  the  popular  mob,  having 
defeated  the  aristocratic  leaders  of  the  revolt,  came  into  power,  witli 
sudh  unquestionable  authority  that  the  nobles  were  debarred  from 


44  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

office,  and  punished  not  only  in  their  own  persons,  but  in  kith  and 
kin,  for  offences  against  the  life  of  a  plebeian.  Five  hundred  noble 
families  were  exiled,  and  of  those  left,  the  greater  part  sued  to  be 
admitted  among  the  people.  This  grace  was  granted  them,  but  upon 
the  condition  that  they  must  not  aspire  to  office  for  five  years,  and 
that  if  any  of  them  killed  or  grievously  wounded  a  plebeian,  he 
should  be  immediately  and  hopelessly  re-ennobled;  which  sounds 
like  some  fantastic  invention  of  Mr.  Frank  K.  Stockton's,  and  only 
too  vividly  recalls  Lord  Tullollcrs  appeal  in  "  Iolanthe : "  — 

"  Spurn  not  the  nobly  born 

With  love  affected, 
Nor  treat  with  virtuous  scorn 

The  well-connected. 
High  rank  involves  no  shame  — 
"We  boast  an  equal  claim 
With  him  of  humble  name 

To  be  respected." 

The  world  has  been  ruled  so  long  by  the  most  idle  and  worthless 
people  in  it,  that  it  always  seems  droll  to  see  those  who  earn  the 
money  spending  it,  and  those  from  whom  the  power  comes  using  it. 
But  we  who  are  now  trying  to  offer  this  ridiculous  spectacle  to  the 
world  ought  not  to  laugh  at  it  in  the  Florentine  government  of 
1343-46.  It  seems  to  have  lasted  no  long  time,  for  at  the  end  of 
three  or  four  years  the  divine  wrath  smote  Florence  with  the  pest. 
This  was  to  chastise  her  for  her  sins,  as  the  chroniclers  tell  us ;  but 
as  a  means  of  reform  it  failed  apparently.  A  hundred  thousand  of 
the  people  died,  and  the  rest,  demoralized  by  the  terror  and  enforced 
idleness  in  which  they  had  lived,  abandoned  themselves  to  all  man- 
ner of  dissolute  pleasures,  and  were  much  worse  than  if  they  had 
never  had  any  pest.  This  pest,  of  which  the  reader  will  find  a  lively 
account  in  Boccaccio's  introduction  to  the  "  Decamerone,"  —  he  was 
able  to  write  of  it  because,  like  De  Foe,  who  described  the  plague  of 
London,  he  had  not  seen  it, — seems  rather  to  have  been  a  blow  at 
popular  government,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  disorders  which  it 
threw  the  democratic  city  into,  and  the  long  train  of  wars  and  mis- 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  45 

eries  that  presently  followed.  But  few  of  us  are  ever  sufficiently  in 
the  divine  confidence  to  be  able  to  say  just  why  this  or  that  thin<* 
happens,  and  we  are  constantly  growing  more  modest  about  assum- 
ing to  know.  What  is  certain  is  that  the  one-man  power,  foreboded 
and  resisted  from  the  first  in  Florence,  was  at  last  to  possess  itself  of 
the  fierce  and  jealous  city.  It  showed  itself,  of  course,  in  a  patriotic 
and  beneficent  aspect  at  the  beginning,  but  within  a  generation  the 
first  memorable  Medici  had  befriended  the  popular  cause  and  had 
made  the  weight  of  his  name  felt  in  Florence.  From  Salvestro  de' 
Medici,  who  succeeded  in  breaking  the  power  of  the  Guelph  nobles 
in  1382,  and,  however  unwillingly,  promoted  the  Tumult  of  the 
Ciompi  and  the  rule  of  the  lowest  classes,  it  is  a  long  step  to  Ave- 
rardo  de'  Medici,  another  popular  leader  in  1421 ;  and  it  is  again 
another  long  step  from  him  to  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  who  got  himself 
called  the  Father  of  his  Country,  and  died  in  1469,  leaving  her  with 
her  throat  fast  in  the  clutch  of  his  nephew,  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent. 
But  it  was  the  stride  of  destiny,  and  nothing  apparently  could 
stay  it. 

XVII. 

The  name  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  is  the  next  name  of  unrivalled 
greatness  to  which  one  comes  in  Florence  after  Dante's.  The  Medici, 
however  one  may  be  principled  against  them,  do  possess  the  imagina- 
tion there,  and  I  could  not  have  helped  going  for  their  sake  to  the 
Piazza  of  the  Mercato  Vecchio,  even  if  I  had  not  wished  to  see  again 
and  again  one  of  the  most  picturesque  and  characteristic  places  in  the 
city.  As  I  think  of  it,  the  pale,  delicate  sky  of  a  fair  winter's  day  in 
Florence  spreads  over  me,  and  I  seem  to  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  old 
square,  with  its  mouldering  colonnade  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other 
its  low,  irregular  roofs,  their  brown  tiles  thinly  tinted  with  a  growth 
of  spindling  grass  and  weeds,  green  the  whole  year  round.  In  front 
of  me  a  vast,  white  old  palace  springs  seven  stories  into  the  sunshine, 
disreputably  shabby  from  basement  to  attic,  but  beautiful,  with  the 
rags  of  a  plebeian  wash-day  caught  across  it  from  balcony  to  balcony, 
as  if  it  had  fancied  trying  to  hide  its  forlornness  in  them.     Around  me 


46  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

are  peasants  and  donkey-carts  and  Florentines  of  all  sizes  and  ages ; 
my  ears  are  filled  with  the  sharp  din  of  an  Italian  crowd,  and  my  nose 
with  the  smell  of  immemorial,  innumerable  market-days,  and  the 
rank,  cutting  savor  of  frying  fish  and  cakes  from  a  score  of  neighbor- 
ing cook-shops ;  but  I  am  happy,  —  happier  than  I  should  probably 
be  if  I  were  actually  there.  Through  an  archway  in  the  street  behind 
me,  not  far  from  an  admirably  tumble-down  shop  full  of  bricabrac 
of  low  degree,  all  huddled — old  bureaus  and  bedsteads,  crockery, 
classic  lamps,  assorted  saints,  shovels,  flat-irons,  and  big-eyed  madon- 
nas—  under  a  sagging  pent-roof,  I  enter  a  large  court,  like  Piazza 
Donati.  Here  the  Medici,  among  other  great  citizens,  had  their  first 
houses ;  and  in  the  narrow  street  opening  out  of  this  court  stands 
the  little  church  which  was  then  the  family  chapel  of  the  Medici, 
after  the  fashion  of  that  time,  where  all  their  marriages,  christenings, 
and  funerals  took  place.  In  time  this  highly  respectable  quarter 
suffered  the  sort  of  social  decay  which  so  frequently  and  so  capri- 
ciously affects  highly  respectable  quarters  in  all  cities ;  and  it  had 
at  last  fallen  so  low,  in  the  reign  of  Cosimo  I.,  that  when  that  grim 
tyrant  wished  cheaply  to  please  the  Florentines  by  making  it  a  little 
harder  for  the  Jews  than  for  the  Christians  under  him,  he  shut  them 
up  in  the  old  court.  They  had  been  let  into  Florence  to  counteract 
the  extortion  of  the  Christian  usurers,  and  upon  the  condition  that 
they  would  not  ask  more  than  twenty  per  cent  interest.  How  much 
more  had  been  taken  by  the  Christians  one  can  hardly  imagine ;  but 
if  this  was  a  low  rate  to  Florentines,  one  easily  understands  how  the 
bankers  of  the  city  grew  rich  by  lending  to  the  necessitous  world 
outside.  Now  and  then  they  did  not  get  back  their  principal,  and 
Edward  III.  of  England  has  still  an  outstanding  debt  to  the  house 
of  Peruzzi,  which  he  bankrupted  in  the  fourteenth  century.  The 
best  of  the  Jews  left  the  city  rather  than  enter  the  Ghetto,  and  only 
the  baser  sort  remained  to  its  captivity.  Whether  any  of  them  still 
continue  there,  I  do  not  know ;  but  the  place  has  grown  more  and 
more  disreputable,  till  now  it  is  the  home  of  the  forlornest  rabble 
I  saw  in  Florence,  and  if  they  were  not  the  worst,  their  looks  are 
unjust  to  them.     They  were  mainly  women  and  children,  as  the 


Ifflfl^L,.: 


>o: 


■^r 


IN    TIIK    OLD   MARKET. 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  49 

worst  classes  seem  to  be  everywhere,  —  I  do  not  know  why,  —  and 
the  air  was  full  of  the  clatter  of  their  feet  and  tongues,  intolerably 
reverberated  from  the  high  many-windowed  walls  of  scorbutic  brick 
and  stucco.  These  walls  were,  of  course,  garlanded  with  garments 
hung  to  dry  from  their  casements.  It  is  perpetually  washing-day  in 
Italy,  and  the  observer,  seeing  so  much  linen  washed  and  so  little 
clean,  is  everywhere  invited  to  the  solution  of  one  of  the  strangest 
problems  of  the  Latin  civilization. 

The  ancient  home  of  the  Medici  has  none  of  the  feudal  dignity, 
the  baronial  pride,  of  the  quarter  of  the  Lamberti  and  the  Buon- 
delmonti ;  and,  disliking  them  as  I  did,  I  was  glad  to  see  it  in  the 
possession  of  that  squalor,  so  different  from  the  cheerful  and  indus- 
trious thrift  of  Piazza  Donati  and  the  neighborhood  of  Dante's  house. 
No  touch  of  sympathetic  poetry  relieves  the  history  of  that  race  of 
demagogues  and  tyrants,  who,  in  their  rise,  had  no  thought  but  to 
aggrandize  themselves,  and  whose  only  greatness  was  an  apotheosis 
of  egotism.  It  is  hard  to  understand  through  what  law  of  develop- 
ment, from  lower  to  higher,  the  Providence  which  rules  the  affairs  of 
men  permitted  them  supremacy ;  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  how 
the  better  men  whom  they  supplanted  and  dominated  should  abhor 
them.  They  were  especially  a  bitter  dose  to  the  proud-stomached 
aristocracy  of  citizens  which  had  succeeded  the  extinct  Ghibelline 
nobility  in  Florence ;  but,  indeed,  the  three  pills  which  they  adopted 
from  the  arms  of  their  guild  of  physicians,  together  with  the  only 
appellation  by  which  history  knows  their  lineage,  were  agreeable  to 
none  who  wished  their  country  well.  From  the  first  Medici  to  the 
last,  they  were  nearly  all  hypocrites  or  ruffians,  bigots  or  imbeciles ; 
and  Lorenzo,  who  was  a  scholar  and  a  poet,  and  the  friend  of  scholars 
and  poets,  had  the  genius  and  science  of  tyranny  in  supreme  degree, 
though  he  wore  no  princely  title  and  assumed  to  be  only  the  chosen 
head  of  the  commonwealth. 

"  Under  his  rule,"  says  Villari,  in  his  "  Life  of  Savonarola,"  that 

almost  incomparable  biography,  "  all  wore  a  prosperous  and  contented 

aspect;  the  parties  that  had  so  long  disquieted  the  city  were  at 

peuce ;  imprisoned,  or  banished,  or  dead,  those  who  would  not  sub- 

4 


50  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

mit  to  the  Medicean  domination ;  tranquillity  and  calm  were  every- 
where. Feasting,  dancing,  public  shows,  and  games  amused  the 
Florentine  people,  who,  once  so  jealous  of  their  rights,  seemed  to  have 
forgotten  even  the  name  of  liberty.  Lorenzo,  who  took  part  in  all  these 
pleasures,  invented  new  ones  every  day.  But  among  all  his  inven- 
tions, the  most  famous  was  that  of  the  carnival  songs  (canti  carna- 
scialeschi),  of  which  he  composed  the  first,  and  which  were  meant  to 
be  sung  in  the  masquerades  of  carnival,  when  the  youthful  nobility, 
disguised  to  represent  the  Triumph  of  Death,  or  a  crew  of  demons,  or 
some  other  caprice  of  fancy,  wandered  through  the  city,  filling  it 
with  their  riot.  The  reading  of  these  songs  will  paint  the  corruption 
of  the  town  far  better  than  any  other  description.  To-day,  not  only 
the  youthful  nobility,  but  the  basest  of  the  populace,  would  hold 
them  in  loathing,  and  to  go  singing  them  through  the  city  would  be 
an  offence  to  public  decency  which  could  not  fail  to  be  punished. 
These  things  were  the  favorite  recreation  of  a  prince  lauded  by  all 
the  world  and  held  up  as  a  model  to  every  sovereign,  a  prodigy  of 
wisdom,  a  political  and  literary  genius.  And  such  as  they  called 
him  then,  many  would  judge  him  still,"  says  our  author,  who  ex- 
plicitly warns  his  readers  against  Eoscoe's  "  Life  of  Lorenzo  de' 
Medici,"  as  the  least  trustworthy  of  all  in  its  characterization.  "  They 
would  forgive  him  the  blood  spilt  to  maintain  a  dominion  unjustly 
acquired  by  him  and  his ;  the  disorder  wrought  in  the  common- 
wealth ;  the  theft  of  the  public  treasure  to  supply  his  profligate 
waste ;  the  shameless  vices  to  which  in  spite  of  his  feeble  .health  he 
abandoned  himself ;  and  even  that  rapid  and  infernal  corruption  of 
the  people,  which  he  perpetually  studied  with  all  the  force  and 
capacity  of  his  soul.  And  all  because  he  was  the  protector  of  letters 
and  the  fine  arts ! 

"  In  the  social  condition  of  Florence  at  that  time  there  was  indeed 
a  strange  contrast.  Culture  was  universally  diffused;  everybody 
knew  Latin  and  Greek,  everybody  admired  the  classics ;  many  ladies 
were  noted  for  the  elegance  of  their  Greek  and  Latin  verses.  The 
arts,  which  had  languished  since  the  time  of  Giotto,  revived,  and  on 
all  sides  rose  exquisite  palaces  and  churches.     But  artists,  scholars, 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  51 

politicians,  nobles,  and  plebeians  were  rotten  at  heart,  lacking  in  every 
public  and  private  virtue,  every  moral  sentiment.  Eeligion  was  the 
tool  of  the  government  or  vile  hypocrisy ;  they  had  neither  civil,  nor 
religious,  nor  moral,  nor  philosophic  faith ;  even  doubt  feebly  asserted 
itself  in  their  souls.  A  cold  indifference  to  every  principle  prevailed, 
and  those  visages  full  of  guile  and  subtlety  wore  a  smile  of  chilly 
superiority  and  compassion  at  any  sign  of  enthusiasm  for  noble  and 
generous  ideas.  They  did  not  oppose  these  or  question  them,  as  a 
philosophical  sceptic  would  have  done ;  they  simply  pitied  them. 
.  .  .  But  Lorenzo  had  an  exquisite  taste  for  poetry  and  the  arts.  .  .  . 
Having  set  himself  up  to  protect  artists  and  scholars,  his  house  be- 
came the  resort  of  the  most  illustrious  wits  of  his  time,  .  .  .  and 
whether  in  the  meetings  under  his  own  roof,  or  in  those  of  the  famous 
Platonic  Academy,  his  own  genius  shone  brilliantly  in  that  elect 
circle.  ...  A  strange  life  indeed  was  Lorenzo's.  After  giving  his 
whole  mind  and  soul  to  the  destruction,  by  some  new  law,  of  some 
last  remnant  of  liberty,  after  pronouncing  some  fresh  sentence  of 
ruin  or  death,  he  entered  the  Platonic  Academy,  and  ardently  dis- 
cussed virtue  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  then  sallying  forth  to 
mingle  with  the  dissolute  youth  of  the  city,  he  sang  his  carnival 
songs,  and  abandoned  himself  to  debauchery ;  returning  home  with 
Pulci  and  Politian,  he  recited  verses  and  talked  of  poetry ;  and  to 
each  of  these  occupations  he  gave  himself  up  as  wholly  as  if  it  were 
the  sole  occupation  of  his  life.  But  the  strangest  thing  of  all  is  that 
in  all  that  variety  of  life  they  cannot  cite  a  solitary  act  of  real  gen- 
erosity toward  his  people,  his  friends,  or  his  kinsmen ;  for  surely  if 
there  had  been  such  an  act,  his  indefatigable  flatterers  would  not 
have  forgotten  it.  .  .  .  He  had  inherited  from  Cosimo  all  that  subtlety 
by  which,  without  being  a  great  statesman,  he  was  prompt  in  cunning 
subterfuges,  full  of  prudence  and  acuteness,  skilful  in  dealing  with 
ambassadors,  most  skilful  in  extinguishing  his  enemies,  bold  and 
cruel  when  he  believed  the  occasion  permitted.  .  .  .  His  face  revealed 
his  character;  there  was  something  sinister  and  hateful  in  it;  the 
complexion  was  greenish,  the  mouth  very  large,  the  nose  flat,  and 
the  vdice  nasal ;  but  his  eye  was  quick  and  keen,  his  forehead  was 


52  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

high,  and  his  manner  had  all  of  gentleness  that  can  be  imagined 
of  an  age  so  refined  and  elegant  as  that;  his  conversation  was 
full  of  vivacity,  of  wit  and  learning;  those  who  were  admitted 
to  his  familiarity  were  always  fascinated  by  him.  He  seconded 
his  age  in  all  its  tendencies ;  corrupt  as  it  was,  he  left  it  cor- 
rupter still  in  every  way ;  he  gave  himself  up  to  pleasure,  and  he 
taught  his  people  to  give  themselves  up  to  it,  to  its  intoxication 
and  its  delirium." 

XVIII. 

This  is  the  sort  of  being  whom  human  nature  in  self-defence 
ought  always  to  recognize  as  a  devil,  and  whom  no  glamour  of  cir- 
cumstance or  quality  should  be  suffered  to  disguise.  It  is  success 
like  his  which,  as  Victor  Hugo  says  of  Louis  Napoleon's  similar  suc- 
cess, "  confounds  the  human  conscience,"  and  kindles  the  lurid  light 
in  which  assassination  seems  a  holy  duty.  Lorenzo's  tyranny  in 
Florence  was  not  only  the  extinction  of  public  liberty,  but  the  con- 
trol of  private  life  in  all  its  relations.  He  made  this  marriage  and 
he  forbade  that  among  the  principal  families,  as  it  suited  his  pleas- 
ure ;  he  decided  employments  and  careers ;  he  regulated  the  most 
intimate  affairs  of  households  in  the  interest  of  his  power,  with  a 
final  impunity  which  is  inconceivable  of  that  proud  and  fiery  Florence. 
The  smoldering  resentment  of  his  tyranny,  which  flamed  out  in  the 
conspiracy  of  the  Pazzi,  adds  the  consecration  of  a  desperate  love  of 
liberty  to  the  cathedral,  hallowed  by  religion  and  history,  in  which 
the  tragedy  was  enacted.  It  was  always  dramatizing  itself  there 
when  I  entered  the  Duomo,  whether  in  the  hush  and  twilight  of 
some  vacant  hour,  or  in  the  flare  of  tapers  and  voices  while  some 
high  ceremonial  filled  the  vast  nave  with  its  glittering  procession. 
But  I  think  the  ghosts  preferred  the  latter  setting.  To  tell  the  truth, 
the  Duomo  at  Florence  is  a  temple  to  damp  the  spirit,  dead  or  alive, 
by  the  immense  impression  of  stony  bareness,  of  drab  vacuity,  which 
one  receives  from  its  interior,  unless  it  is  filled  with  people.  Outside 
it  is  magnificently  imposing,  in  spite  of  the  insufficiency  and  irregu- 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  53 

larity  of  its  piazza.  In  spite  of  having  no  such  approach  as  St.  Mark's 
at  Venice,  or  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  or  even  the  cathedral  at  Milan,  in 
spite  of  being  almost  crowded  upon  by  the  surrounding  shops  and 
cafes,  it  is  noble,  and  more  and  more  astonishing ;  and  there  is  the 
baptistery,  with  its  heavenly  gates,  and  the  tower  of  Giotto,  with  its 
immortal  beauty,  as  novel  for  each  new-comer  as  if  freshly  set  out 
there  overnight  for  his  advantage.  Nor  do  I  object  at  all  to  the  cab- 
stands there,  and  the  little  shops  all  round,  and  the  people  thronging 
through  the  piazza,  in  and  out  of  the  half-score  of  crooked  streets 
opening  upon  it.  You  do  not  get  all  the  grandeur  of  the  cathedral 
outside,  but  you  get  enough,  while  you  come  away  from  the  interior 
in  a  sort  of  destitution.  One  needs  some  such  function  as  I  saw 
there  one  evening  at  dusk  in  order  to  realize  all  the  spectacular 
capabilities  of  the  place.  This  function  consisted  mainly  of  a  visible 
array  of  the  Church's  forces  "against  blasphemy,"  as  the  printed 
notices  informed  me ;  but  with  the  high  altar  blazing,  a  constellation 
of  candles  in  the  distant  gloom,  and  the  long  train  of  priests,  chor- 
isters, acolytes,  and  white-cowled  penitents,  each  with  his  taper,  and 
the  archbishop,  bearing  the  pyx,  at  their  head,  under  a  silken  canopy, 
it  formed  a  setting  of  incomparable  vividness  for  the  scene  on  the 
last  Sunday  before  Ascension,  1478. 

There  is,  to  my  thinking,  no  such  mirror  of  the  spirit  of  that  time 
as  the  story  of  this  conspiracy.  A  pope  was  at  the  head  of  it,  and 
an  archbishop  was  there  in  Florence  to  share  actively  in  it.  Having 
failed  to  find  Lorenzo  and  Giuliano  de'  Medici  together  at  Lorenzo's 
villa,  the  conspirators  transfer  the  scene  to  the  cathedral ;  the  mo- 
ment chosen  for  striking  the  blow  is  that  supremely  sacred  moment 
when  the  very  body  of  Christ  is  elevated  for  the  adoration  of  the 
kneeling  worshippers.  What  a  contempt  they  all  have  for  the  place 
and  the  office !  In  this  you  read  one  effect  of  that  study  of  antiquity 
which  was  among  the  means  Lorenzo  used  to  corrupt  the  souls  of 
men ;  the  Florentines  are  half  repaganized.  Yet  at  the  bottom  of 
the  heart  of  one  conspirator  lingers  a  mediasval  compunction,  and 
though  not  unwilling  to  kill  a  man,  this  soldier  does  not  know  about 
killing  one  in  a  church.     Very  well,  then,  give  up  your  dagger,  you 


54  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

simple  soldier ;  give  it  to  this  priest ;  he  knows  what  a  church  is, 
and  how  little  sacred ! 

The  cathedral  is  packed  with  people,  and  Lorenzo  is  there,  but 
Giuliano  is  not  come  yet.  Are  we  to  be  fooled  a  second  time  ? 
Malediction !  Send  some  one  to  fetch  that  Medicean  beast,  who  is 
so  slow  coming  to  the  slaughter !  I  am  of  the  conspiracy,  for  I  hate 
the  Medici;  but  these  muttered  blasphemies,  hissed  and  ground 
through  the  teeth,  this  frenzy  for  murder,  —  it  is  getting  to  be  little 
better  than  that,  —  make  me  sick.  Two  of  us  go  for  Giuliano  to  his 
house,  and  being  acquaintances  of  his,  we  laugh  and  joke  familiarly 
with  him ;  we  put  our  arms  caressingly  about  him,  and  feel  if  he  has 
a  shirt  of  mail  on,  as  we  walk  him  between  us  through  the  crowd  at 
the  corner  of  the  cafe  there,  invisibly,  past  all  the  cabmen  ranked 
near  the  cathedral  and  the  baptistery,  not  one  of  whom  shall  snatch 
his  horse's  oat-bag  from  his  nose  to  invite  us  phantoms  to  a  turn  in 
the  city.  We  have  our  friend  safe  in  the  cathedral  at  last,  —  hap- 
less, kindly  youth,  whom  we  have  nothing  against  except  that  he  is 
of  that  cursed  race  of  the  Medici, — and  now  at  last  the  priest  ele- 
vates the  host  and  it  is  time  to  strike ;  the  little  bell  tinkles,  the 
multitude  holds  its  breath  and  falls  upon  its  knees ;  Lorenzo  and 
Giuliano  kneel  with  the  rest.  A  moment,  and  Bernardo  Bandini 
plunges  his  short  dagger  through  the  boy,  who  drops  dead  upon  his 
face,  and  Francesco  Pazzi  flings  himself  upon  the  body,  and  blindly 
striking  to  make  sure  of  his  death,  gives  himself  a  wound  in  the  leg 
that  disables  him  for  the  rest  of  the  work.  And  now  we  see  the 
folly  of  intrusting  Lorenzo  to  the  unpractised  hand  of  a  priest,  who 
would  have  been  neat  enough,  no  doubt,  at  mixing  a  dose  of  poison. 
The  bungler  has  only  cut  his  man  a  little  in  the  neck  !  Lorenzo's 
sword  is  out  and  making  desperate  play  for  his  life ;  his  friends  close 
about  him,  and  while  the  sacred  vessels  are  tumbled  from  the  altar 
and  trampled  under  foot  in  the  mellay,  and  the  cathedral  rings  with 
yells  and  shrieks  and  curses  and  the  clash  of  weapons,  they  have 
hurried  him  into  the  sacristy  and  barred  the  doors,  against  which  we 
shall  beat  ourselves  in  vain.  Fury  !  Infamy  !  Malediction  !  Pick 
yourself  up,  Francesco  Pazzi,  and  get  home  as  you  may  !     There  is 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  55 

no  mounting  to  horse  and  crying  liberty  through  the  streets  for  you ! 
All  is  over !  The  wretched  populace,  the  servile  signory,  side  with 
the  Medici ;  in  a  few  hours  the  Archbishop  of  Pisa  is  swinging  by 
the  neck  from  a  window  of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio ;  and  while  he  is  yet 
alive  you  are  dragged,  bleeding  and  naked,  from  your  bed  through  the 
streets  and  hung  beside  him,  so  close  that  in  his  dying  agony  he  sets 
his  teeth  in  your  breast  with  a  convulsive  frenzy  that  leaves  you  fast 
in  the  death-clutch  of  his  jaws  till  they  cut  the  ropes  and  you  ruin 
hideously  down  to  the  pavement  below. 

XIX. 

One  must  face  these  grisly  details  from  time  to  time  if  he  would 
feel  what  Florence  was.  All  the  world  was  like  Florence  at  that 
time  in  its  bloody  cruelty ;  the  wonder  is  that  Florence,  being  what 
she  otherwise  was,  should  be  like  all  the  world  in  that.  One  should 
take  the  trouble  also  to  keep  constantly  in  mind  the  smallness  of  the 
theatre  in  which  these  scenes  were  enacted.  Compared  with  modern 
cities,  Florence  was  but  a  large  town,  and  these  Pazzi  were  neighbors 
and  kinsmen  of  the  Medici,  and  they  and  their  fathers  had  seen  the 
time  when  the  Medici  were  no  more  in  the  state  than  other  families 
which  had  perhaps  scorned  to  rise  by  their  arts.  It  would  be  insuf- 
ferable to  any  of  us  if  some  acquaintance  whom  we  knew  so  well, 
root  and  branch,  should  come  to  reign  over  us;  but  this  is  what 
happened  through  the  Medici  in  Florence. 

I  walked  out  one  pleasant  Sunday  afternoon  to  the  Villa  Careggi, 
where  Lorenzo  made  a  dramatic  end  twenty  years  after  the  tragedy 
in  the  cathedral.  It  is  some  two  miles  from  the  city ;  I  could  not 
say  in  just  what  direction  ;  but  it  does  not  matter,  since  if  you  do 
not  come  to  Villa  Careggi  when  you  go  to  look  for  it,  you  come  to 
something  else  equally  memorable,  by  ways  as  beautiful  and  through 
landscapes  as  picturesque.  I  remember  that  there  was  hanging  from 
a  crevice  of  one  of  the  stone  walls  which  we  sauntered  between,  one 
of  those  great  purple  anemones  of  Florence,  tilting  and  swaying  in 
the>  sunny  air  of  February,  and  that  there  was  a  tender  presentiment 


56  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

of  spring  in  the  atmosphere,  and  people  were  out  languidly  enjoying 
the  warmth  about  their  doors,  as  if  the  winter  had  been  some  malady 
of  theirs,  and  they  were  now  slowly  convalescent.  The  mountains 
were  white  with  snow  beyond  Fiesole,  but  that  was  perhaps  to  set  off 
to  better  advantage  the  nearer  hill-sides,  studded  with  villas  gleam- 
ing white  through  black  plumes  of  cypress,  and  blurred  with  long 
gray  stretches  of  olive  orchard ;  it  is  impossible  to  escape  some  such 
crazy  impression  of  intention  in  the  spectacular  prospect  of  Italy, 
though  that  is  probably  less  the  fault  of  the  prospect  than  of  the 
people  who  have  painted  and  printed  so  much  about  it.  There  were 
vineyards,  of  course,  as  well  as  olive  orchards  on  all  those  broken 
and  irregular  slopes,  over  which  wandered  a  tangle  of  the  high  walls 
which  everywhere  shut  you  out  from  intimate  approach  to  the  fields 
about  Florence ;  you  may  look  up  at  them,  afar  off,  or  you  may  look 
down  at  them,  but  you  cannot  look  into  them  on  the  same  level. 

We  entered  the  Villa  Careggi,  when  we  got  to  it,  through  a  high, 
grated  gateway,  and  then  we  found  ourselves  in  a  delicious  garden, 
the  exquisite  thrill  of  whose  loveliness  lingers  yet  in  my  utterly 
satisfied  senses.  I  remember  it  as  chiefly  a  plantation  of  rare  trees, 
with  an  enchanting  glimmer  of  the  inexhaustibly  various  landscape 
through  every  break  in  their  foliage ;  but  near  the  house  was  a  for- 
mal parterre  for  flowers,  silent,  serene,  aristocratic,  touched  not  with 
decay,  but  a  sort  of  pensive  regret.  On  a  terrace  yet  nearer  were 
some  putti,  some  frolic  boys  cut  in  marble,  with  a  growth  of  brown 
moss  on  their  soft  backs,  and  looking  as  if,  in  their  lapse  from  the 
civilization  for  which  they  were  designed,  they  had  begun  to  clothe 
themselves  in  skins. 

As  to  the  interior  of  the  villa,  every  one  may  go  there  and  observe 
its  facts;  its  vast,  cold,  dim  saloons,  its  floors  of  polished  cement, 
like  ice  to  the  foot,  and  its  walls  covered  with  painted  histories  and 
anecdotes  and  portraits  of  the  Medici.  The  outside  warmth  had  not 
got  into  the  house,  and  I  shivered  in  the  sepulchral  gloom,  and  could 
get  no  sense  of  the  gay,  voluptuous,  living  past  there,  not  even  in  the 
prettily  painted  loggia  where  Lorenzo  used  to  sit  with  his  friends 
overlooking  Val  d'Arno,  and  glimpsing  the  tower  of  Giotto  and  the 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  57 

dome  of  Brunelleschi.  But  there  is  one  room,  next  to  the  last  of  the 
long  suite  fronting  on  the  lovely  garden,  where  the  event  which 
makes  the  place  memorable  has  an  incomparable  actuality.  It  is  the 
room  where  Lorenzo  died,  and  his  dying  eyes  could  look  from  its 
windows  out  over  the  lovely  garden,  and  across  the  vast  stretches  of 
villa  and  village,  olive  and  cypress,  to  the  tops  of  Florence  swimming 
against  the  horizon.  He  was  a  long  time  dying,  of  the  gout  of  his 
ancestors  and  his  own  debauchery,  and  he  drew  near  his  end  cheer- 
fully enough,  and  very  much  as  he  had  always  lived,  now  reasoning 
high  of  philosophy  and  poetry  with  Pico  della  Mirandola  and  Politian, 
and  now  laughing  at  the  pranks  of  the  jesters  and  buffoons  whom 
they  brought  in  to  amuse  him,  till  the  very  last,  when  he  sickened 
of  all  those  delights,  fine  or  gross,  and  turned  his  thoughts  to  the 
mercy  despised  so  long.  But,  as  he  kept  saying,  none  had  ever  dared 
give  him  a  resolute  No,  save  one ;  and  dreading  in  his  final  hours  the 
mockery  of  flattering  priests,  he  sent  for  this  one  fearless  soul ;  and 
Savonarola,  who  had  never  yielded  to  his  threats  or  caresses,  came 
at  the  prayer  of  the  dying  man,  and  took  his  place  beside  the  bed  we 
still  see  there,  —  high,  broad,  richly  carved  in  dark  wood,  with  a  pic- 
ture of  Perugino's  on  the  wall  at  the  left  beside  it.  Piero,  Lorenzo's 
son,  from  whom  he  has  just  parted,  must  be  in  the  next  room  yet, 
and  the  gentle  Pico  della  Mirandola,  whom  Lorenzo  was  so  glad  to 
see  that  he  smiled  and  jested  with  him  in  the  old  way,  has  closed 
the  door  on  the  preacher  and  the  sinner.  Lorenzo  confesses  that  he 
has  heavy  on  his  soul  three  crimes :  the  cruel  sack  of  Volterra,  the 
theft  of  the  public  dower  of  young  girls,  by  which  many  were  driven 
to  a  wicked  life,  and  the  blood  shed  after  the  conspiracy  of  the  Pazzi. 
"  He  was  greatly  agitated,  and  Savonarola  to  quiet  him  kept  repeat- 
ing '  God  is  good ;  God  is  merciful.  But,'  he  added,  when  Lorenzo 
had  ceased  to  speak,  '  there  is  need  of  three  things.'  '  And  what  are 
they,  father  ? '  '  First,  you  must  have  a  great  and  living  faith  in  the 
mercy  of  God.'  'This  I  have  —  the  greatest.'  'Second,  you  must 
restore  that  which  you  have  wrongfully  taken,  or  require  your  chil- 
dren to  restore  it  for  you.'  Lorenzo  looked  surprised  and  troubled  ; 
but  he  forced  himself  to  compliance,  and  nodded  his  head  in  sign  of 


58  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

assent.  Then  Savonarola  rose  to  his  feet,  and  stood  over  the  dying 
prince.  '  Last,  you  must  give  back  their  liberty  to  the  people  of 
Florence.'  Lorenzo,  summoning  all  his  remaining  strength,  disdain- 
fully turned  his  back;  and,  without  uttering  a  word,  Savonarola 
departed  without  giving  him  absolution." 

It  was  as  if  I  saw  and  heard  it  all,  as  I  stood  there  in  the  room 
where  the  scene  had  been  enacted ;  it  still  remains  to  me  the  vividest 
event  in  Florentine  history,  and  Villari  has  no  need,  for  me  at  least, 
to  summon  all  the  witnesses  he  calls  to  establish  the  verity  of  the 
story.  There  are  some  disputed  things  that  establish  themselves  in 
our  credence  through  the  nature  of  the  men  and  the  times  of  which 
they  are  told,  and  this  is  one  of  them.  Lorenzo  and  Savonarola  were 
equally  matched  in  courage,  and  the  Italian  soul  of  the  one  was  as 
subtle  for  good  as  the  Italian  soul  of  the  other  was  subtle  for  evil. 
In  that  encounter,  the  preacher  knew  that  it  was  not  the  sack  of  a 
city  or  the  blood  of  conspirators  for  which  the  sinner  really  desired 
absolution,  however  artfully  and  naturally  they  were  advanced  in 
his  appeal ;  and  Lorenzo  knew  when  he  sent  for  him  that  the  monk 
would  touch  the  sore  spot  in  his  guilty  heart  unerringly.  It  was  a 
profound  drama,  searching  the  depths  of  character  on  either  side,  and 
on  either  side  it  was  played  with  matchless  magnanimity. 

XX. 

After  I  had  been  at  Careggi,  I  had  to  go  again  and  look  at  San 
Marco,  at  the  cell  to  which  Savonarola  returned  from  that  death-bed, 
sorrowing.  Yet,  at  this  distance  of  time  and  place,  one  must  needs 
wonder  a  little  why  one  is  so  pitiless  to  Lorenzo,  so  devoted  to 
Savonarola.  I  have  a  suspicion,  which  I  own  with  shame  and  reluc- 
tance, that  I  should  have  liked  Lorenzo's  company  much  better,  and 
that  I,  too,  should  have  felt  to  its  last  sweetness  the  charm  of  his 
manner.  I  confess  that  I  think  I  should  have  been  bored  —  it  is 
well  to  be  honest  with  one's  self  in  all  things  —  by  the  menaces  and 
mystery  of  Savonarola's  prophesying,  and  that  I  should  have  thought 
his  crusade  against  the  pomps  and  vanities  of  Florence  a  vulgar  and 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  59 

ridiculous  business.  He  and  his  monks  would  have  been  terribly- 
dull  companions  for  one  of  my  make  within  their  convent;  and 
when  they  came  out  and  danced  in  a  ring  with  his  male  and  female 
devotees  in  the  square  before  the  church,  I  should  have  liked  them 
no  better  than  so  many  soldiers  of  the  Army  of  Salvation.  That  is 
not  my  idea  of  the  way  in  which  the  souls  of  men  are  to  be  purified 
and  elevated,  oi*  their  thoughts  turned  to  God.  Puerility  and  vul- 
garity of  a  sort  to  set  one's  teeth  on  edge  marked  the  excesses  which 
Savonarola  permitted  in  his  followers ;  and  if  he  could  have  realized 
his  puritanic  republic,  it  would  have  been  one  of  the  heaviest  yokes 
about  the  neck  of  poor  human  nature  that  have  ever  burdened  it. 
For  the  reality  would  have  been  totally  different  from  the  ideal.  So 
far  as  we  can  understand,  the  popular  conception  of  Savonarola's 
doctrine  was  something  as  gross  as  Army-of-Salvationism,  as  wild 
and  sensuous  as  backwoods  Wesleyism,  as  fantastic,  as  spiritually 
arrogant  as  primitive  Quakerism,  as  bleak  and  grim  as  militant 
Puritanism.  We  must  face  these  facts,  and  the  fact  that  Savonarola, 
though  a  Puritan,  was  no  Protestant  at  all,  but  the  most  devout  of 
Catholics,  even  while  he  defied  the  Pope.  He  was  a  sublime  and 
eloquent  preacher,  a  genius  inspired  to  ecstasy  with  the  beauty  of 
holiness  ;  but  perhaps  —  perhaps  !  —  Lorenzo  knew  the  Florentines 
better  than  he  when  he  turned  his  face  away  and  died  unshriven 
rather  than  give  them  back  their  freedom.  Then  why,  now  that 
they  have  both  been  dust  for  four  hundred  years,  —  and  in  all  things 
the  change  is  such  that  if  not  a  new  heaven  there  is  a  new  earth 
since  their  day,  —  why  do  we  cling  tenderly,  devoutly,  to  the  strange, 
frenzied  apostle  of  the  Impossible,  and  turn,  abhorring,  from  that 
gay,  accomplished,  charming,  wise,  and  erudite  statesman  who  knew 
what  men  were  so  much  better?  There  is  nothing  of  Savonarola 
now  but  the  memory  of  his  purpose,  nothing  of  Lorenzo  but  the 
memory  of  his ;  and  now  we  see,  far  more  clearly  than  if  the  /rate 
had  founded  his  free  state  upon  the  ruins  of  the  magnificd's  tyranny, 
that  the  one  willed  only  good  to  others,  and  the  other  willed  it  only 
to  himself.  All  history,  like  each  little  individual  experience,  en- 
fcft'ces  nothing  but  this  lesson  of  altruism ;  and  it  is  because  the 


60  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

memory  which  consecrates  the  church  of  San  Marco  teaches  it  in 
supreme  degree  that  one  stands  before  it  with  a  swelling  heart. 

In  itself  the  church  is  nowise  interesting  or  imposing,  with  that 
ugly  and  senseless  classicism  of  its  facade,  which  associates  itself 
with  Spain  rather  than  Italy,  and  the  stretch  of  its  plain,  low  con- 
vent walls.     It  looks  South  American,  it  looks  Mexican,  with  its 
plaza-like  piazza ;   and   the  alien  effect  is  heightened  by  the  stiff 
tropical  plants  set  round  the  recent  military  statue  in  the  centre. 
But  when  you  are  within  the  convent  gate,  all  is  Italian,  all  is 
Florentine  again ;  for  there  is  nothing  more  Florentine  in  Florence 
than  those  old  convent  courts  into  which  your  sight-seeing  takes  you 
so  often.     The  middle  space  is  enclosed  by  the  sheltering  cloisters, 
and  here  the  grass  lies  green  in  the  sun  the  whole  winter  through, 
with    daisies  in  it,  and  other  simple   little  sympathetic  weeds   or 
flowers ;  the  still  air  is  warm,  and  the  place  lias  a  climate  of  its  own. 
Of  course,  the  Dominican  friars  are  long  gone  from  San  Marco ;  the 
place  is  a  museum  now,  admirably  kept  up  by  the  Government. 
I  paid  a  franc  to  go  in,  and  found  the  old  cloister  so  little  convent- 
ual that  there  was  a  pretty  girl  copying  a   fresco   in   one   of   the 
lunettes,  who  presently  left  her  scaldino  on  her  scaffolding,  and  got 
down  to  start  the  blood  in  her  feet  by  a  swift  little  promenade  under 
the  arches  where  the  monks  used  to  walk,  and  over  the  dead  whose 
gravestones  pave  the  way.     You  cannot  help  those  things ;  and  she 
was  really  very  pretty,  —  much  prettier  than  a  monk.     In  one  of  the 
cells  upstairs  there  was  another  young  lady ;  she  was  copying  a  Fra 
Angelico,  who  might  have  been  less  shocked  at  her  presence  than 
some  would  think.     He  put  a  great  number  of  women,  as  beautiful 
as  he  could  paint  them,  in  the  frescos  with  which  he  has  illuminated 
the  long  line  of  cells.     In  one  place  he  has  left  his  own  portrait  in 
a  saintly  company,  looking  on  at  an  Annunciation :  a  very  handsome 
youth,  with  an  air  expressive  of  an  artistic  rather  than  a  spiritual 
interest  in  the  fact  represented,  which  indeed  has  the  effect  merely 
of  a  polite  interview.     One  looks  at  the  frescos  glimmering  through 
the  dusk  of  the  little  rooms  in  hardly  discernible  detail,  with  more 
or  less  care,  according  to  one's  real '  or  attempted  delight  in  them, 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  61 

and  then  suddenly  comes  to  the  cell  of  Savonarola ;  and  all  the  life 
goes  out  of  those  remote  histories  and  allegories,  and  pulses  in  an 
agony  of  baffled  good  in  this  martyrdom.  Here  is  the  desk  at  which 
he  read  and  wrote ;  here  are  laid  some  leaves  of  his  manuscript,  as 
if  they  had  just  trembled  from  those  wasted  hands  of  his ;  here  is 
the  hair  shirt  he  wore,  to  mortify  and  torment  that  suffering  flesh 
the  more;  here  is  a  bit  of  charred  wood  gathered  from  the  fire  in 
which  he  expiated  his  love  for  the  Florentines  by  a  hideous  death 
at  their  hands.  It  rends  the  heart  to  look  at  them  !  Still,  after 
four  hundred  years,  the  event  is  as  fresh  as  yesterday,  —  as  fresh  as 
Calvary ;  and  never  can  the  race  which  still  gropes  blindly  here  con- 
ceive of  its  divine  source  better  than  in  the  sacrifice  of  some  poor 
fellow-creature  who  perishes  by  those  to  whom  he  meant  nothing 
but  good. 

As  one  stands  in  the  presence  of  these  pathetic  witnesses,  the 
whole  lamentable  tragedy  rehearses  itself  again,  with  a  power  that 
makes  one  an  actor  in  it.  Here,  I  am  of  that  Florence  which  has 
sprung  erect  after  shaking  the  foot  of  the  tyrant  from  its  neck,  too 
fiercely  free  to  endure  the  yoke  of  the  reformer ;  and  I  perceive  the 
waning  strength  of  Savonarola's  friends,  the  growing  number  of  his 
foes.  I  stand  with  the  rest  before  the  Palazzo  Vecchio  waiting  for 
the  result  of  that  ordeal  by  fire  to  which  they  have  challenged  his 
monks  in  test  of  his  claims,  and  I  hear  with  foreboding  the  murmurs 
of  the  crowd  when  they  are  balked  of  their  spectacle  by  that  question 
between  the  Dominicans  and  the  Franciscans  about  carrying  the  host 
through  the  flames ;  I  return  with  him  heavy  and  sorrowful  to  his 
convent,  prescient  of  broken  power  over  the  souls  which  his  voice 
has  swayed  so  long;  I  am  there  in  San  Marco  when  he  rises  to 
preach,  and  the  gathering  storm  of  insult  and  outrage  bursts  upon 
him,  witli  hisses  and  yells,  till  the  battle  begins  between  his  Piagnoni 
and  the  Arrabbiati,  and  rages  through  the  consecrated  edifice,  and 
that  fiery  Peter  among  his  friars  beats  in  the  skulls  of  his  assailants 
with  the  bronze  crucifix  caught  up  from  the  altar ;  I  am  in  the  piazza 
before  the  church  when  the  mob  attacks  the  convent,  and  the  monks, 
shaking  off  his  meek  control,  reply  with  musket-shots  from  their 


62 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


cells ;  I  am  with  him  when  the  signory  sends  to  lead  him  a  prisoner 
to  the  Bargello ;  I  am  there  when  they  stretch  upon  the  rack  that 
frail  and  delicate  body,  which  fastings  and  vigils  and  the  cloistered 
life  have  wrought  up  to  a  nervous  sensibility  as  keen  as  a  woman's ; 


IN   THE   BARGELLO. 


I  hear  his  confused  and  uncertain 
replies  under  the  torture  when  they 
ask  him  whether  he  claims  now  to  have  -i->^  j  v7;, 

prophesied  from  God;    I  climb  with  him, 

for  that  month's  respite  they  allow  him  before  they  put  him  to 
the  question  again,  to  the  narrow  cell  high  up  in  the  tower  of 
the  Old  Palace,  where,  with  the  roofs  and  towers  of  the  cruel 
city  he  had  so  loved  far  below  him,  and  the  purple  hills  misty 
against  the  snow-clad  mountains  all  round  the  horizon,  he  recovers 
something  of  his  peace  of  mind,  and  keeps  his  serenity  of  soul;  I 
follow  him  down  to  the  chapel  beautiful  with  Ghirlandajo's  frescos, 
where  he  spends  his  last  hours,  before  they  lead  him  between  the 
two  monks  who  are  to  suffer  with  him ;  and  once  more  T  stand 
among  the  pitiless  multitude  in  the  piazza.  They  make  him  taste 
the  agony  of  death  twice  in  the  death  of  his  monks  ;  then  he  submits 
his  neck  to  the  halter   and   the   hangman    thrusts   him   from   the 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  63 

scaffold,  where  the  others  hang  dangling  in  their  chains  above  the 
pyre  that  is  to  consume  their  bodies.  "  Prophet !  "  cries  an  echo  of 
the  mocking  voice  on  Calvary,  "  now  is  the  time  for  a  miracle ! "  The 
hangman  thinks  to  please  the  crowd  by  playing  the  buffoon  with 
the  quivering  form ;  a  yell  of  abhorrence  breaks  from  them,  and  he 
makes  haste  to  descend  and  kindle  the  fire  that  it  may  reach  Savona- 
rola while  he  is  still  alive.  A  wind  rises  and  blows  the  flame  away. 
The  crowd  shrinks  back  terrified  :  "  A  miracle !  a  miracle ! "  But 
the  wind  falls  again,  and  the  bodies  slowly  burn,  dropping  a  rain  of 
blood  into  the  hissing  embers.  The  heat  moving  the  right  hand  of 
Savonarola,  he  seems  to  lift  it  and  bless  the  multitude.  The  Pia- 
gnoni  fall  sobbing  and  groaning  to  their  knees ;  the  Arrabbiati  set 
on  a  crew  of  ribald  boys,  who,  dancing  and  yelling  round  the  fire, 
pelt  the  dead  martyrs  with  a  shower  of  stones. 

Once  more  I  was  in  San  Marco,  but  it  was  now  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  on  a  Sunday  of  January,  1883.  There,  in  the  place  of  Savon- 
arola, who,  though  surely  no  Protestant,  was  one  of  the  precursors 
of  the  Reformation,  stood  a  Northern  priest,  chief  perhaps  of  those 
who  would  lead  us  back  to  Eome,  appealing  to  us  in  the  harsh  sibi- 
lants of  our  English,  where  the  Dominican  had  rolled  the  organ 
harmonies  of  his  impassioned  Italian  upon  his  hearers'  souls.  I  have 
certainly  nothing  to  say  against  Monsignor  Capel,  and  I  have  never 
seen  a  more  picturesque  figure  than  his  as  he  stood  in  his  episcopal 
purple  against  the  curtain  of  pale  green  behind  him,  his  square 
priest's  cap  on  his  fine  head,  and  the  embroidered  sleeves  of  some 
ecclesiastical  under-vestment  showing  at  every  tasteful  gesture.  His 
face  was  strong,  and  beautiful  with  its  deep-sunk  dreamy  eyes,  and 
he  preached  with  singular  vigor  and  point  to  a  congregation  of  all 
the  fashionable  and  cultivated  English-speaking  people  in  Florence, 
and  to  larger  numbers  of  Italians  whom  I  suspected  of  coming  partly 
to  improve  themselves  in  our  tongue.  They  could  not  have  done 
better ;  his  English  was  exquisite  in  diction  and  accent,  and  his 
matter  was  very  good.  He  was  warning  us  against  Agnosticism  and 
the  limitations  of  merely  scientific  wisdom ;  but  I  thought  that  there 
was  little  need  to  persuade  us  of  God  in  a  church  where  Savonarola 


64 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


had  lived  and  aspired ;  and  that  even  the  dead,  who  had  known  him 
and  heard  him,  and  who  now  sent  up  their  chill  through  the  pave- 
ment from  the  tombs  below,  and  made  my  feet  so  very  cold,  were 
more  eloquent  of  immortality  in  that  place. 


XXI. 

One  morning,  early  in  February,  I  walked  out  through  the  pictur- 
esqueness  of  Oltrarno,  and  up  the  long  ascent  of  the  street  to  Porta 
San  Giorgio,  for  the 
purpose  of  revering 
what  is  left  of  the  for- 
tifications designed  by 
Michael  Angelo  for  the 
defence  of  the  city  in 
the  great  siege  of  1535. 
There  are  many  things 
to  distract  even  the 
most  resolute  pilgrim 
on  the  way  to  that  gate, 
and  I  was  but  too  will- 
ing to  loiter.  There 
are  bricabrac  shops  on 
the  Ponte  Vecchio,  and 
in  the  Via  Guicciar- 
dini  and  the  Piazza 
Pitti,  with  old  canvases, 
and  carvings,  and 
bronzes  in  their  win- 
dows ;  and  though  a 
little  past  the  time  of 
life  when  one  piously 

looks  up  the  scenes  of  fiction,  I  had  to  make  an  excursion  up  the 
Via  de'  Bardi  for  the  sake  of  Eomola,  whose  history  begins  in 
that  street.      It  is  a  book  which  you   must   read   again  in  Flor- 


A   STREET   IN   OLTRARNO. 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  65 

ence,  for  it  gives  a  true  and  powerful  impression  of  Savonarola's 
time,  even  if  the  author  does  burden  her  drama  and  dialogue 
with  too  much  history.  The  Via  de'  Bardi,  moreover,  is  worthy 
a  visit  for  its  own  Gothic-palaced,  mediaeval  sake,  and  for  the  sake 
of  that  long  stretch  of  the  Boboli  garden  wall  backing  upon  it 
with  ivy  flung  over  its  shoulder,  and  a  murmur  of  bees  in  some 
sort  of  invisible  blossoms  beyond.  In  that  neighborhood  I  had  to 
stop  a  moment  before  the  house  —  simple,  but  keeping  its  counte- 
nance in  the  presence  of  a  long  line  of  Guicciardini  palaces  —  where 
Machiavelli  lived ;  a  barber  has  his  shop  on  the  ground  floor  now, 
and  not  far  off,  again,  are  the  houses  of  the  Canigiani,  the  maternal 
ancestors  of  Petrarch.  And  yet  a  little  way,  up  a  steep,  winding 
street,  is  the  house  of  Galileo.  It  bears  on  its  front  a  tablet  record- 
ing the  great  fact  that  Ferdinand  II.  de'  Medici  visited  his  valued 
astronomer  there,  and  a  portrait  of  the  astronomer  is  painted  on  the 
stucco;  there  is  a  fruiterer  underneath,  and  there  are  a  great  many 
children  playing  about,  and  their  mothers  screaming  at  them.  The 
vast  sky  is  blue  without  a  speck  overhead,  and  I  look  down  on  the 
tops  of  garden  trees,  and  the  brown-tiled  roofs  of  houses  sinking  in 
ever  richer  and  softer  picturesqueness  from  level  to  level  below. 
But  to  get  the  prospect  in  all  its  wonderful  beauty,  one  must  push 
on  up  the  street  a  little  farther,  and  pass  out  between  two  indolent 
sentries  lounging  under  the  Giottesquely  frescoed  arch  of  Porta  San 
Giorgio,  into  the  open  road.  By  this  time  I  fancy  the  landscape  will 
have  got  the  better  of  history  in  the  interest  of  any  amateur,  and  he 
will  give  but  a  casual  glance  at  Michael  Angelo's  bastions  or  towers, 
and  will  abandon  himself  altogether  to  the  rapture  of  that  scene. 

For  my  part,  I  cannot  tell  whether  I  am  more  blest  in  the  varieties 
of  effect  which  every  step  of  the  descent  outside  the  wall  reveals  in 
the  city  and  its  river  and  valley,  or  in  the  near  olive  orchards,  gray 
in  the  sun,  and  the  cypresses,  intensely  black  against  the  sky.  The 
road  next  the  wall  is  bordered  by  a  tangle  of  blackberry  vines,  which 
the  amiable  Florentine  winter  has  not  had  the  harshness  to  rob  of 
their  leaves ;  they  hang  green  from  the  canes,  on  which  one  might 
almost  hope  to  find  some  berries.     The  lizards,  basking  in  the  warm 

5 


66 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


dust,  rustle  away  among  them  at  my  approach,  and  up  the  path 
comes  a  gentleman  in  the  company  of  two  small  terrier  dogs,  whose 
little  bells  finely  tinkle  as  they  advance.  It  would  be  hard  to  say 
just  how  these  gave  the  final  touch  to  my  satisfaction  with  a  prospect 
in  which  everything  glistened  and  sparkled  as  far  as  the  snows  of 
Vallombrosa,  lustrous  along  the  horizon ;  but  the  reader  ought  to 
understand. 

XXII. 

I  was  instructed  by  the  friend  in  whose  tutelage  I  was  pursuing 
with  so  much  passion  my  search  for  historical  localities  that  I  had 
better  not  give  myself  quite  away  to  either  the  asso- 
ciations or  the  landscapes  at  Porta  San  Giorgio,  but 
wait  till  I  visited  San  Miniato.  Afterward  I  was  "lad 
that  I  did   so,  for   that   is   certainly  the  point  from 


THE   PORTA   ROMAXA. 


which   best   to   enjoy  both.     The   day  of   our  visit  was   gray  and 
overcast,  but  the  air  was  clear,  and  nothing  was  lost  to   the  eye 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  67 

among  the  objects  distinct  in  line  and  color,  almost  as  far  as  it  could 
reach.  We  went  out  of  the  famous  Porta  Eomana,  by  which  so  much 
history  enters  and  issues  that  if  the  customs  officers  there  were  not 
the  most  circumspect  of  men,  they  never  could  get  round  among  the 
peasants'  carts  to  tax  their  wine  and  oil  without  trampling  a  multi- 
tude of  august  and  pathetic  presences  under  foot.  One  shudders  at 
the  rate  at  which  one's  cocchiere  dashes  through  the  Past  thronging 
the  lofty  archway,  and  scatters  its  phantoms  right  and  left  with  loud 
explosions  of  his  whip.  Outside  it  is  somewhat  better,  among  the 
curves  and  slopes  of  the  beautiful  suburban  avenues,  with  which 
Florence  was  adorned  to  be  the  capital  of  Italy  twenty  years  ago. 
But  here,  too,  history  thickens  upon  you,  even  if  you  know  it  but  a 
little ;  it  springs  from  the  soil  that  looks  so  red  and  poor,  and  seems 
to  fill  the  air.  In  no  other  space,  it  seems  to  me,  do  the  great  events 
stand  so  dense  as  in  that  city  and  the  circuit  of  its  hills ;  so  that,  for 
mere  pleasure  in  its  beauty,  the  sense  of  its  surpassing  loveliness, 
perhaps  one  had  better  not  know  the  history  of  Florence  at  all.  As 
little  as  I  knew  it,  I  was  terribly  incommoded  by  it ;  and  that  morn- 
ing, when  I  drove  up  to  San  Miniato  to  "  realize  "  the  siege  of  Flor- 
ence, keeping  a  sharp  eye  out  for  Montici,  where  Sciarra  Colonna  had 
his  quarters,  and  the  range  of  hills  whence  the  imperial  forces  joined 
in  the  chorus  of  his  cannon  battering  the  tower  of  the  church,  I 
would  far  rather  have  been  an  unpremeditating  listener  to  the  poem 
of  Browning  which  the  friend  in  the  carriage  with  me  was  repeating. 
The  din  of  the  guns  drowned  his  voice  from  time  to  time,  and  while 
he  was  trying  to  catch  a  faded  phrase,  and  going  back  and  correcting 
himself,  and  saying,  "  No  —  yes  —  no  !  That 's  it  —  no !  Hold  on  — 
I  have  it ! "  as  people  do  in  repeating  poetry,  my  embattled  fancy  was 
flying  about  over  all  the  historic  scene,  sallying,  repulsing,  defeating, 
succumbing ;  joining  in  the  famous  camisada  when  the  Florentines 
put  their  shirts  on  over  their  armor  and  attacked  the  enemy's  sleep- 
ing camp  by  night,  and  at  the  same  time  playing  ball  down  in  the 
piazza  of  Santa  Croce  with  the  Florentine  youth  in  sheer  contempt  of 
the  besiegers.  It  was  prodigiously  fatiguing,  and  I  fetched  a  long 
stgh  of  exhaustion  as  I  dismounted  at  the  steps  of  San  Miniato,  which 


68 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


was  the  outpost  of  the  Florentines,  and  walked  tremulously  round  it 
for  a  better  view  of  the  tower  in  whose  top  they  had  planted  their 
great  gun.  It  was  all  battered  there  by  the  enemy's  shot  aimed  to 
dislodge  the  piece,  and  hi  the  crumbling  brickwork  nodded  tufts  of 
grass  and  dry  weeds  in  the  wind,  like  so  many  conceits  of  a  frivolous 
tourist  springing  from  the  tragic  history  it  recorded.  The  apse  of  the 
church  below  this  tower  is  of  the  most  satisfying  golden  brown  in 
color,  and  within,  the  church  is  what  all  the  guide-books  know,  but 
what  I  own  I  have  forgotten.     It  is  a  very  famous  temple,  and  every 


PONTE   SANTA    TRINITA. 


one  goes  to  see  it,  for  its  frescos  and  mosaics  and  its  peculiar  beauty 
of  architecture ;  and  I  dedicated  a  moment  of  reverent  silence  to  the 
memory  of  the  poet  Giusti,  whose  monument  was  there.  After  four 
hundred  years  of  slavery,  his  pen  was  one  of  the  keenest  and  bravest 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  69 

of  those  which  resumed  the  old  Italian  fight  for  freedom,  and  he 
might  have  had  a  more  adequate  monument.  I  believe  there  is  an 
insufficient  statue,  or  perhaps  it  is  only  a  bust,  or  may  be  a  tablet 
with  his  face  in  bas-relief ;  but  the  modern  Italians  are  not  happy  in 
their  commemorations  of  the  dead.  The  little  Campo  Santo  at  San 
Miniato  is  a  place  to  make  one  laugh  and  cry  with  the  hideous  vul- 
garity of  its  realistic  busts  and  its  photographs  set  in  the  tombstones ; 
and  yet  it  is  one  of  the  least  offensive  in  Italy.  When  I  could  escape 
from  the  fascination  of  its  ugliness,  I  went  and  leaned  with  my 
friend  on  the  parapet  that  encloses  the  Piazza  Michelangelo,  and  took 
my  fill  of  delight  in  the  landscape.  The  city  seemed  to  cover  the 
whole  plain  beneath  us  with  the  swarm  of  its  edifices,  and  the  steely 
stretch  of  the  Arno  thrust  through  its  whole  length  and  spanned  by 
its  half-dozen  bridges.  The  Duomo  and  the  Palazzo  Vecchio  swelled 
up  from  the  mass  with  a  vastness  which  the  distance  seemed  only  to 
accent  and  reveal.  To  the  northward  showed  the  snowy  tops  of  the 
Apennines,  while  on  the  nearer  slopes  of  the  soft  brown  hills  Hanking 
the  wonderful  valley  the  towns  and  villas  hung  densely  drifted 
everywhere,  and  whitened  the  plain  to  its  remotest  purple. 

I  spare  the  reader  the  successive  events  which  my  unhappy  ac- 
quaintance with  the  past  obliged  me  to  wait  and  see  sweep  over  this 
mighty  theatre.  The  winter  was  still  in  the  wind  that  whistled 
round  our  lofty  perch,  and  that  must  make  the  Piazza  Michelangelo 
so  delicious  in  the  summer  twilight ;  the  bronze  copy  of  the  David 
in  the  centre  of  the  square  looked  half  frozen.  The  terrace  is  part  of 
the  system  of  embellishment  and  improvement  of  Florence  for  her 
brief  supremacy  as  capital ;  and  it  is  fitly  called  after  Michael  Angelo 
because  it  covers  the  site  of  so  much  work  of  his  for  her  defence  in 
the  great  siege.  We  looked  about  till  we  could  endure  the  cold  no 
longer,  and  then  returned  to  our  carriage.  By  this  time  the  siege 
was  over,  and  after  a  resistance  of  fifteen  months  we  were  betrayed 
by  our  leader  Malatesta  Baglioni,  who  could  not  resist  the  Pope's 
bribe.  With  the  disgraceful  facility  of  pleasure-seeking  foreigners 
we  instantly  changed  sides,  and  returned  through  the  Porta  Bomana, 
Which  his  treason  opened,  and,  because  it  was  so  convenient,  entered 


70  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

the  city  with  a  horde  of  other  Spanish  and  German  bigots  and  mer- 
cenaries that  the  empire  had  hurled  against  the  stronghold  of  Italian 
liberty. 

XXIII. 

Yet,  once  within  the  beloved  walls,  —  I  must  still  call  them  walls, 
though  they  are  now  razed  to  the  ground  and  laid  out  in  fine  avenues, 
with  a  perpetual  succession  of  horse-cars  tinkling  down  their  midst, 
—  I  was  all  Florentine  again,  and  furious  against  the  Medici,  whom 
after  a  whole  generation  the  holy  league  of  the  Emperor  and  the 
Pope  had  brought  back  in  the  person  of  the  bastard  Alessandro. 
They  brought  him  back,  of  course,  in  prompt  and  explicit  violation  of 
their  sacred  word ;  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  could  not  wait  for  his 
cousin  Lorenzino  to  kill  him,  —  such  is  the  ferocity  of  the  mildest 
tourist  in  the  presence  of  occasions  sufficiently  remote.  But  surely 
if  ever  a  man  merited  murder  it  was  that  brutal  despot,  whose  tyran- 
nies and  excesses  had  something  almost  deliriously  insolent  in  them, 
and  who,  crime  for  crime,  seems  to  have  preferred  that  which  was 
most  revolting.  But  I  had  to  postpone  this  exemplary  assassination 
till  I  could  find  the  moment  for  visiting  the  Biccardi  Palace,  in  the 
name  of  which  the  fact  of  the  elder  Medicean  residence  is  clouded. 
It  has  long  been  a  public  building,  and  now  some  branch  of  the 
municipal  government  has  its  meetings  and  offices  there ;  but  what 
the  stranger  commonly  goes  to  see  is  the  chapel  or  oratory  frescoed 
by  Benozzo  Gozzoli,  which  is  perhaps  the  most  simply  and  satisfy- 
ingly  lovely  little  space  that  ever  four  walls  enclosed.  The  sacred 
histories  cover  every  inch  of  it  with  form  and  color ;  and  if  it  all 
remains  in  my  memory  a  sensation  of  delight,  rather  than  anything 
more  definite,  that  is  perhaps  a  witness  to  the  efficacy  with  which 
the  painter  wrought.  Serried  ranks  of  seraphs,  peacock-plumed,  and 
kneeling  in  prayer ;  garlands  of  roses  everywhere ;  contemporary 
Florentines  on  horseback,  riding  in  the  train  of  the  Three  Magi 
Kings  under  the  low  boughs  of  trees  ;  and  birds  fluttering  through 
the  dim,  mellow  atmosphere,  the  whole  set  dense  and  close  in  an 
opulent  yet  delicate  fancifulness  of  design,  —  that  is  what  I  recall, 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  71 

with  a  conviction  of  the  idleness  and  absurdity  of  recalling  anything. 
It  was  like  going  out  of  doors  to  leave  the  dusky  splendor  of  this 
chapel,  which  was  intended  at  first  to  be  seen  only  by  the  light  of 
silver  lamps,  and  come  into  the  great  hall  frescoed  by  Luca  Giordano, 
where  his  classicistic  fables  swim  overhead  in  immeasurable  light. 
They  still  have  the  air,  those  boldly  foreshortened  and  dramatically 
postured  figures,  of  being  newly  dashed  on,  —  the  work  of  yesterday 
begun  the  day  before;  and  they  fill  one  with  an  ineffable  gayety: 
War,  Pestilence,  and  Famine,  no  less  than  Peace,  Plenty,  and  Hygi- 
enic Plumbing,  —  if  that  was  one  of  the  antithetical  personages. 
Upon  the  whole,  I  think  the  seventeenth  century  was  more  comfort- 
able than  the  fifteenth,  and  that  when  men  had  fairly  got  their 
passions  and  miseries  impersonalized  into  allegory,  they  were  in  a 
state  to  enjoy  themselves  much  better  than  before.  One  can  very 
well  imagine  the  old  Cosimo  who  built  this  palace  having  himself 
carried  through  its  desolate  magnificence,  and  crying  that,  now  his 
son  was  dead,  it  was  too  big  for  his  family ;  but  grief  must  have  been 
a  much  politer  and  seemlier  thing  in  Florence  when  Luca  Giordano 
painted  the  ceiling  of  the  great  hall. 

In  the  Duke  Alessandro's  time  they  had  only  got  half-way,  and 
their  hearts  ached  and  burned  in  primitive  fashion.  The  revival  of 
learning  had  brought  them  the  consolation  of  much  classic  example, 
both  virtuous  and  vicious,  but  they  had  not  yet  fully  philosophized 
slavery  into  elegant  passivity.  Even  a  reprobate  like  Lorenzino  de' 
Medici — "the  morrow  of  a  debauch,"  as  De  Musset  calls  him  — 
had  his  head  full  of  the  high  Roman  fashion  of  finishing  tyrants,  and 
behaved  as  much  like  a  Greek  as  he  could. 

The  Palazzo  Eiccardi  now  includes  in  its  mass  the  site  of  the 
house  in  which  Lorenzino  lived,  as  well  as  the  narrow  street  which 
formerly  ran  between  his  house  and  the  palace  of  the  Medici;  so 
that  if  you  have  ever  so  great  a  desire  to  visit  the  very  spot  where 
Alessandro  died  that  only  too  insufficient  death,  you  must  wreak 
your  frenzy  upon  a  small  passage  opening  out  of  the  present  court. 
You  enter  this  from  the  modern  liveliness  of  the  Via  Cavour,  —  in 
every  Italian  city  since  the  unification  there  is  a  Via  Cavour,  a  Via 


72  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

Garibaldi,  and  a  Corso  Vittorio  Emmanuel e,  —  and  you  ordinarily 
linger  for  a  moment  among  the  Etruscan  and  Koman  marbles  before 
paying  your  half  franc  and  going  upstairs.  There  is  a  little  confusion 
in  this,  but  I  think  upon  the  whole  it  heightens  the  effect ;  and  the 
question  whether  the  custodian  can  change  a  piece  of  twenty  francs, 
debating  itself  all  the  time  in  the  mind  of  the  amateur  of  tyranni- 
cide, sharpens  his  impatience,  while  he  turns  aside  into  the  street 
which  no  longer  exists,  and  mounts  the  phantom  stairs  to  the  van- 
ished chamber  of  the  demolished  house,  where  the  Duke  is  waiting 
for  the  Lady  Ginori,  as  he  believes,  but  really  for  his  death.  No  one, 
I  think,  claims  that  he  was  a  demon  less  infernal  than  Lorenzino 
makes  him  out  in  that  strange  Apology  of  his,  in  which  he  justifies 
himself  to  posterity  by  appeals  to  antiquity.  "  Alessandro,"  he  says, 
"  went  far  beyond  Phalaris  in  cruelty,  because,  whereas  Phalaris 
justly  punished  Perillus  for  his  cruel  invention  for  miserably  tor- 
menting and  destroying  men  in  his  brazen  Bull,  Alessandro  would 
have  rewarded  him  if  he  had  lived  in  his  time,  for  he  was  himself 
always  thinking  out  new  sorts  of  tortures  and  deaths,  like  building 
men  up  alive  in  places  so  narrow  that  they  could  not  turn  or  move, 
but  might  be  said  to  be  built  in  as  a  part  of  the  wall  of  brick  and 
stone,  and  in  that  state  feeding  them  and  prolonging  their  misery  as 
much  as  possible,  the  monster  not  satisfying  himself  with  the  mere 
death  of  his  people ;  so  that  the  seven  years  of  his  reign,  for  de- 
bauchery, for  avarice  and  cruelty,  may  be  compared  with  seven 
others  of  Nero,  of  Caligula,  or  of  Phalaris,  choosing  the  most  abomi- 
nable of  their  whole  lives,  in  proportion,  of  course,  of  the  city  to  the 
empire ;  for  in  that  time  so  many  citizens  will  be  found  to  have  been 
driven  from  their  country,  and  persecuted,  and  murdered  in  exile,  and 
so  many  beheaded  without  trial  and  without  cause,  and  only  for 
empty  suspicion,  and  for  words  of  no  importance,  and  others  poisoned 
or  slain  by  his  own  hand,  or  his  satellites,  merely  that  they  might 
not  put  him  to  shame  before  certain  persons,  for  the  condition  in 
which  he  was  born  and  reared ;  and  so  many  extortions  and  robberies 
will  be  found  to  have  been  committed,  so  many  adulteries,  so  many 
violences,  not  only  in  things  profane  but  in  sacred  also,  that  it  will 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  73 

be  difficult  to  decide  whether  the  tyrant  was  more  atrocious  and 
impious,  or  the  Florentine  people  more  patient  and  vile.  .  .  .  And  if 
Timoleon  was  forced  to  kill  his  own  brother  to  liberate  his  country, 
and  was  so  much  praised  and  celebrated  for  it,  and  still  is  so,  what 
authority  have  the  malevolent  to  blame  me  ?  But  in  regard  to  kill- 
ing one  who  trusted  me  (which  I  do  not  allow  I  have  done),  I  say 
that  if  I  had  done  it  in  this  case,  and  if  I  could  not  have  accom- 
plished it  otherwise,  I  should  have  done  it.  .  .  .  That  he  was  not  of 
the  house  of  Medici  and  my  kinsman  is  manifest,  for  he  was  born  of 
a  woman  of  base  condition,  from  Castelvecchi  in  the  Eomagna,  who 
lived  in  the  house  of  the  Duke  Lorenzo  [of  Urbino],  and  was  em- 
ployed in  the  most  menial  services,  and  married  to  a  coachman.  .  .  . 
He  [Alessandro]  left  her  to  work  in  the  fields,  so  that  those  citizens 
of  ours  who  had  fled  from  the  tyrant's  avarice  and  cruelty  in  the  city 
determined  to  conduct  her  to  the  Emperor  at  Naples,  to  show  his 
Majesty  whence  came  the  man  he  thought  fit  to  rule  Florence.  Then 
Alessandro,  forgetting  his  duty  in  his  shame,  and  the  love  for  his 
mother,  which  indeed  he  never  had,  and  through  an  inborn  cruelty 
and  ferocity,  caused  his  mother  to  be  killed  before  she  came  to  the 
Emperor's  presence." 

On  the  way  up  to  the  chamber  to  which  the  dwarfish,  sickly  little 
tyrannicide  has  lured  his  prey,  the  most  dramatic  moment  occurs. 
He  stops  the  bold  ruffian  whom  he  has  got  to  do  him  the  pleasure  of 
a  certain  unspecified  homicide,  in  requital  of  the  good  turn  by  which 
he  once  saved  his  life,  and  whispers  to  him,  "  It  is  the  Duke ! " 
Scoronconcolo,  who  had  merely  counted  on  an  every-day  murder, 
falters  in  dismay.  But  he  recovers  himself :  "  Here  we  are ;  go 
ahead,  if  it  were  the  devil  himself  ! "  And  after  that  he  has  no  more 
compunction  in  the  affair  than  if  it  were  the  butchery  of  a  simple 
citizen.  The  Duke  is  lying  there  on  the  bed  in  the  dark,  and  Loren- 
zino  bends  over  him  with  "  Are  you  asleep,  sir  ? "  and  drives  his 
sword,  shortened  to  half  length,  through  him  ,  but  the  Duke  springs 
up,  and  crying  out,  "  I  did  not  expect  this  of  thee ! "  makes  a  fight 
for  his  life  that  tasks  the  full  strength  of  the  assassins,  and  covers 
fche  chamber  with  blood.     When  the  work  is  done,  Lorenzino  draws 


74  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

the  curtains  round  the  bed  again,  and  pins  a  Latin  verse  to  them 
explaining  that  he  did  it  for  love  of  country  and  the  thirst  for 
glory. 

XXIV. 

Is  it  perhaps  all  a  good  deal  too  mucli  like  a  stage-play  ?  Or  is 
it  that  stage-plays  are  too  much  like  facts  of  this  sort  ?  If  it  were 
at  the  theatre,  one  could  go  away,  deploring  the  bloodshed,  of  course, 
but  comforted  by  the  justice  done  on  an  execrable  wretch,  the  mur- 
derer of  his  own  mother,  and  the  pollution  of  every  life  that  he 
touched.  But  if  it  is  history  we  have  been  reading,  we  must  turn 
the  next  page  and  see  the  city  filled  with  troops  by  the  Medici  and 
their  friends,  and  another  of  the  race  established  in  power  before  the 
people  know  that  the  Duke  is  dead.  Clearly,  poetical  justice  is  not 
the  justice  of  God.  If  it  were,  the  Florentines  would  have  had  the 
republic  again  at  once.  Lorenzino,  instead  of  being  assassinated  in 
Venice,  on  his  way  to  see  a  lady,  by  the  emissaries  of  the  Medici, 
would  have  satisfied  public  decorum  by  going  through  the  form  of  a 
trial,  and  would  then  have  accepted  some  official  employment  and 
made  a  good  end.  Yet  the  seven  Medicean  dukes  who  followed 
Alessandro  were  so  variously  bad  for  the  most  part  that  it  seems 
impious  to  regard  them  as  part  of  the  design  of  Providence.  How, 
then,  did  they  come  to  be  ?  Is  it  possible  that  sometimes  evil  pre- 
vails by  its  superior  force  in  the  universe  ?  We  must  suppose  that 
it  took  seven  Medicean  despots  and  as  many  more  of  the  house  of 
Lorraine  and  Austria  to  iron  the  Florentines  out  to  the  flat  and 
polished  peacefulness  of  their  modern  effect.  Of  course,  the  com- 
monwealth could  not  go  on  in  the  old  way ;  but  was  it  worse  at  its 
worst  than  the  tyranny  that  destroyed  it  ?  I  am  afraid  we  must 
allow  that  it  wTas  more  impossible.  People  are  not  put  into  the  world 
merely  to  love  their  country ;  they  must  have  peace.  True  freedom 
is  only  a  means  to  peace ;  and  if  such  freedom  as  they  have  will  not 
give  them  peace,  then  they  must  accept  it  from  slavery.  It  is  always 
to  be  remembered  that  the  great  body  of  men  are  not  affected  by 
oppressions  that  involve  the  happiness  of  the  magnanimous  few ;  the 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC. 


75 


affair  of  most  men  is  mainly  to  be  sheltered  and  victualled  and 
allowed  to  prosper  and  bring  up  their  families.  Yet  when  one  thinks 
of  the  sacrifices  made  to  perpetuate  popular  rule  in  Florence,  one's 
heart  is  wrung  in  indignant  sympathy  with  the  hearts  that  broke  for 
it.  Of  course,  one  must,  in  order  to  experience  this  emotion,  put  out 
of  his  mind  certain  facts,  as  that  there  never  was  freedom  for  more 
than  one  party  at  a  time  under  the  old  commonwealth  ;  that  as  soon 
as  one  party  came  into  power  the  other  was  driven  out  of  the  city ; 
and  that  even  within  the  triumphant  party  every  soul  seemed  cor- 
roded by  envy  and  distrust  of  every  other.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  the 
consoling  reflection  that  the  popular  party  was  always  the  most 
generous  and  liberal,  and  that  the  oppression  of  all  parties  under  the 
despotism  was  not  exactly  an  improvement  on  the  oppression  of  one. 
With  this  thought  kept  before  you  vividly,  and  with  those  facts 
blinked,  you  may  go,  for  example,  into  the  Medici  Chapel  of  San 
Lorenzo  and  make  pretty  sure  of  your  pang  in  the  presence  of  those 
solemn  figures  of  Michael  Angelo's,  where  his  Night  seems  to  have 
his  words  of  grief  for  the  loss  of  liberty  upon  her  lips  :  — 

"  'T  is  sweet  to  sleep,  sweeter  of  stone  to  be, 
And  while  endure  the  infamy  and  woe, 
For  me  't  is  happiness  not  to  feel  or  see. 

Do  not  awake  me  therefore.     Ah,  speak  low  !  " 


76  TUSCAN  CITIES. 


XXV. 

'HOSE  words  of  Michael  Angelo's  answer  to 
Strozzi's  civil  verses  on  his  Day  and  Night 
are  nobly  simple,  and  of  a  colloquial  and 
natural  pitch  to  which  their  author  sel- 
dom condescended  in  sculpture.  Even 
the  Day  is  too  muscularly  awaking  and  the  Night  too  anatomi- 
cally sleeping  for  the  spectator's  perfect  loss  of  himself  in  the 
sculptor's  thought ;  but  the  figures  are  so  famous  that  it  is  hard  to 
reconcile  one's  self  to  the  fact  that  they  do  not  celebrate  the  memory 
of  the  greatest  Medici.  That  Giuliano  whom  we  see  in  the  chapel 
there  is  little  known  to  history ;  of  that  Lorenzo,  history  chiefly 
remembers  that  he  was  the  father  of  Alessandro,  whom  we  have  seen 
slain,  and  of  Catharine  de'  Medici.  Some  people  may  think  this 
enough ;  but  we  ought  to  read  the  lives  of  the  other  Medici  before 
deciding.  Another  thing  to  guard  against  in  that  chapel  is  the  cold ; 
and,  in  fact,  one  ought  to  go  well  wrapped  up  in  visiting  any  of  the 
in-door  monuments  of  Florence.  Santa  Croce,  for  example,  is  a  tem- 
ple whose  rigors  I  should  not  like  to  encounter  again  in  January, 
especially  if  the  day  be  fine  without.  Then  the  sun  streams  in  with 
a  deceitful  warmth  through  the  mellow  blazon  of  the  windows,  and 
the  crone,  with  her  scaldino  at  the  door,  has  the  air  almost  of  sitting 
by  a  register.  But  it  is  all  an  illusion.  By  the  time  you  have  gone 
the  round  of  the  strutting  and  mincing  allegories,  and  the  pompous 
effigies  with  which  art  here,  as  everywhere,  renders  death  ridiculous, 
you  have  scarcely  the  courage  to  penetrate  to  those  remote  chapels 
where  the  Giotto  frescos  are.  Or  if  you  do,  you  shiver  round  among 
them  with  no  more  pleasure  in  them  than  if  they  were  so  many 
boreal  lights.  Vague  they  are,  indeed,  and  spectral  enough,  those 
faded  histories  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  John  the  Evangelist,  and  St. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  and  as  far  from  us,  morally,  as  anything  at  the 
pole ;  so  that  the  honest  sufferer,  who  feels  himself  taking  cold  in 
his  bare  head,  would  blush  for  his  absurdity  in  pretending  to  get  any 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  77 

comfort  or  joy  from  them,  if  all  the  available  blood  in  his  body  were 
not  then  concentrated  in  the  tip  of  his  nose.  For  my  part,  I  mar- 
velled at  myself  for  being  led,  even  temporarily,  into  temptation  of 
that  sort ;  and  it  soon  came  to  my  putting  my  book  under  my  arm 
and  my  hands  in  my  pockets,  and,  with  a  priest's  silken  skull-cap  on 
my  head,  sauntering  among  those  works  of  art  with  no  more  sense  of 
obligation  to  them  than  if  I  were  their  contemporary.  It  is  well,  if 
possible,  to  have  some  one  with  you  to  look  at  the  book,  and  see 
what  the  works  are  and  the  authors.  But  nothing  of  it  is  comparable 
to  getting  out  into  the  open  piazza  again,  where  the  sun  is  so  warm, 
—  though  not  so  warm  as  it  looks. 

It  suffices  for  the  Italians,  however,  who  are  greedy  in  nothing  and 
do  not  require  to  be  warmed  through,  any  more  than  to  be  fed  full. 
The  wonder  of  their  temperance  comes  back  with  perpetual  surprise 
to  the  gluttonous  Northern  nature.  Their  shyness  of  your  fire,  their 
gentle  deprecation  of  your  out-of-hours  hospitality,  amuse  as  freshly 
as  at  first ;  and  the  reader  who  has  not  known  the  fact  must  imagine 
the  well-dressed  throng  in  the  Florentine  street  more  meagrely  break- 
fasted and  lunched  than  anything  but  destitution  with  us,  and  pro- 
tected against  the  cold  in-doors  by  nothing  but  the  clothes  which  are 
much  more  efficient  without. 

XXVI. 

What  strikes  one  first  in  the  Florentine  crowd  is  that  it  is  so  well 
dressed.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  average  of  fashion  is  so  great  as 
with  us,  but  that  the  average  of  raggedness  is  less.  Venice,  when  I 
saw  it  again,  seemed  in  tatters,  but,  so  far  as  I  can  remember,  Florence 
was  not  even  patched ;  and  this,  in  spite  of  the  talk  one  constantly 
hears  of  the  poverty  which  has  befallen  the  city  since  the  removal  of 
the  capital  to  Eome.  All  classes  are  said  to  feel  this  adversity  more 
or  less,  but  none  of  them  show  it  on  the  street;  beggary  itself  is 
silenced  to  the  invisible  speech  which  one  sees  moving  the  lips  of 
the  old  women  who  steal  an  open  palm  towards  you  at  the  church 
doors.      Florence  is  not  only  better  dressed  on  the  average  than 


78  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

Boston,  but,  with  little  over  half  the  population,  there  are,  I  should 
think,  nearly  twice  as  many  private  carriages  in  the  former  city.  I 
am  not  going  beyond  the  most  non-committal  si  dice  in  any  study  of 
the  Florentine  civilization,  and  I  know  no  more  than  that  it  is  said 
(as  it  has  been  said  ever  since  the  first  northern  tourist  discovered 
them)  that  they  will  starve  themselves  at  home  to  make  a  show 
abroad.  But  if  they  do  not  invite  the  observer  to  share  their  domes- 
tic self-denial,  —  and  it  is  said  that  they  do  not,  even  when  he  has 
long  ceased  to  be  a  passing  stranger,  —  I  do  not  see  why  he  should 
complain.  For  my  part  their  abstemiousness  cost  me  no  sacrifice, 
and  I  found  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  in  looking  at  the  turnouts  in 
the  Cascine,  and  at  the  fur-lined  coats  in  the  streets  and  piazzas. 
They  are  always  great  wearers  of  fur  in  the  south,  but  I  think  it  is 
less  fashionable  than  it  used  to  be  in  Italy.  The  younger  swells  did 
not  wear  it  in  Florence,  but  now  and  then  I  met  an  elderly  gentle- 
man, slim,  tall,  with  an  iron -gray  mustache,  who,  in  folding  his  long 
fur-lined  overcoat  loosely  about  him  as  he  walked,  had  a  gratifying 
effect  of  being  an  ancestral  portrait  of  himself ;  and  with  all  persons 
and  classes  content  to  come  short  of  recent  fashion,  fur  is  the  most 
popular  wear  for  winter.  Each  has  it  in  such  measure  as  he  may; 
and  one  day  in  the  Piazza  della  Signoria,  when  there  was  for  some 
reason  an  assemblage  of  market-folk  there,  every  man  had  hanging 
operatically  from  his  shoulder  an  overcoat  with  cheap  fur  collar  and 
cuffs.  They  were  all  babbling  and  gesticulating  with  an  impassioned 
amiability,  and  their  voices  filled  the  place  with  a  leafy  rustling 
which  it  must  have  known  so  often  in  the  old  times,  when  the  Floren- 
tines came  together  there  to  govern  Florence.  One  ought  not,  I 
suppose,  to  imagine  them  always  too  grimly  bent  on  public  business 
in  those  times.  They  must  have  got  a  great  deal  of  fun  out  of  it,  in 
the  long  run,  as  well  as  trouble,  and  must  have  enjoyed  sharpening 
their  wits  upon  one  another  vastly. 

The  presence  now  of  all  those  busy-tongued  people  —  bargaining 
or  gossiping,  whichever  they  were — gave  its  own  touch  to  the  pecu- 
liarly noble  effect  of  the  piazza,  as  it  rose  before  me  from  the  gentle 
slope  of  the  Via  Borgo  dei  Greci.     I  was  coming  back  from  that  visit 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  79 

to  Santa  Croce,  of  which  I  have  tried  to  give  the  sentiment,  and  I 
was  resentfully  tingling  still  with  the  cold,  and  the  displeasure  of  a 
backward  glance  at  the  brand-new  ugliness  of  the  facade,  and  of  the 
big  clumsy  Dante  on  his  pedestal  before  it,  when  all  my  burden 
suddenly  lifted  from  me,  as  if  nothing  could  resist  the  spring  of  that 
buoyant  air.  It  was  too  much  for  even  the  dull,  vague  rage  I  felt  at 
having  voluntarily  gone  through  that  dreary  old  farce  of  old-master 
doing  again,  in  which  the  man  only  averagely  instructed  in  the  his- 
tory of  art  is  at  his  last  extreme  of  insincerity,  weariness,  and  degra- 
dation,-—  the  ridiculous  and  miserable  slave  of  the  guide-book  asterisks 
marking  this  or  that  thing  as  worth  seeing.  All  seemed  to  rise  and 
float  away  with  the  thin  clouds,  chasing  one  another  across  the  gen- 
erous space  of  afternoon  sky  which  the  piazza  opened  to  the  vision ; 
and  my  spirit  rose  as  light  as  the  lion  of  the  Eepublic,  which  capers 
so  nimbly  up  the  staff  on  top  of  the  palace  tower. 

There  is  something  fine  in  the  old  piazza  being  still  true  to  the 
popular  and  even  plebeian  use.  In  narrow  and  crowded  Florence, 
one  might  have  supposed  that  fashion  would  have  tried  to  possess 
itself  of  the  place,  after  the  public  palace  became  the  residence  of  the 
Medici ;  but  it  seems  not  to  have  changed  its  ancient  character.  It 
is  now  the  starting-point  of  a  line  of  omnibuses ;  a  rank  of  cabs  sur- 
rounds the  base  of  Cosimo's  equestrian  statue ;  the  lottery  is  drawn 
on  the  platform  in  front  of  the  palace ;  second-rate  shops  of  all  sorts 
face  it  from  two  sides,  and  the  restaurants  and  cafes  of  the  neighbor- 
hood are  inferior.  But  this  unambitious  environment  leaves  the 
observer  all  the  freer  to  his  impressions  of  the  local  art,  the  groups 
of  the  Loggia  dei  Lanzi,  the  symmetrical  stretch  of  the  Portico  degli 
Uffizzi,  and,  best  of  all,  the  great,  bold,  irregular  mass  of  the  old 
palace  itself,  beautiful  as  some  rugged  natural  object  is  beautiful, 
and  with  the  kindliness  of  nature  in  it.  Plenty  of  men  have  been 
hung  from  its  windows,  plenty  dashed  from  its  turrets,  slain  at  its 
base,  torn  in  pieces,  cruelly  martyred  before  it ;  the  wild  passions  of 
the  human  heart  have  beaten  against  it  like  billows ;  it  has  faced 
every  violent  crime  and  outbreak.  And  yet  it  is  sacred,  and  the 
scene  is  sacred,  to  all  who  hope  for  their  kind;  for  there,  in  some 


80  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

sort,  century  after  century,  the  purpose  of  popular  sovereignty  —  the 
rule  of  all  by  the  most  —  struggled  to  fulfil  itself,  purblindly, 
bloodily,  ruthlessly,  but  never  ignobly,  and  inspired  by  an  instinct 
only  less  strong  than  the  love  of  life.  There  is  nothing  superfine, 
nothing  of  the  salon  about  the  place,  nothing  of  the  beauty  of  Piazza 
San  Marco  at  Venice,  which  expresses  the  elegance  of  an  oligarchy 
and  suggests  the  dapper  perfection  of  an  aristocracy  in  decay ;  it  is 
loud  with  wheels  and  hoofs,  and  busy  with  commerce,  and  it  has  a 
certain  ineffaceable  rudeness  and  unfinish  like  the  structure  of  a 
democratic  state. 

XXVII. 

When  Cosimo  I.,  who  succeeded  Alessandro,  moved  his  residence 
from  the  family  seat  of  the  Medici  to  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  it  was  as 
if  he  were  planting  his  foot  on  the  very  neck  of  Florentine  liberty. 
He  ground  his  iron  heel  in  deeply ;  the  prostrate  city  hardly  stirred 
afterwards.  One  sees  what  a  potent  and  valiant  man  he  was  from 
the  terrible  face  of  the  bronze  bust  by  Benvenuto  Cellini,  now  in  the 
Bargello  Museum;  but  the  world,  going  about  its  business  these 
many  generations,  remembers  him  chiefly  by  a  horrid  crime,  —  the 
murder  of  his  son  in  the  presence  of  the  boy's  mother.  Yet  he  was 
not  only  a  great  warrior  and  wild  beast;  he  befriended  letters, 
endowed  universities,  founded  academies,  encouraged  printing ;  he 
adorned  his  capital  with  statues  and  public  edifices ;  he  enlarged  and 
enriched  the  Palazzo  Vecchio ;  he  bought  Luca  Pitti's  palace,  and 
built  the  Uffizzi,  thus  securing  the  eternal  gratitude  of  the  tourists 
who  visit  these  galleries,  and  have  something  to  talk  about  at  the  table 
d'hote.  It  was  he  who  patronized  Benvenuto  Cellini,  and  got  him  to 
make  his  Perseus  in  the  Loggia  de'  Lanzi ;  he  built  the  fishermen's 
arcade  in  the  Mercato  Vecchio,  and  the  fine  loggia  of  the  Mercato 
Nuovo;  he  established  the  General  Archives,  and  reformed  the  laws 
and  the  public  employments  ;  he  created  Leghorn,  and  throughout 
Tuscany,  which  his  arms  had  united  under  his  rule,  he  promoted  the 
material  welfare  of  his  people,  after  the  manner  of  tyrants  when 
they  do  not  happen  to  be  also  fools. 


v4< 


7  ^f>: 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  83 

His  care  of  them  in  other  respects  may  be  judged  from  the  fact 
that  he  established  two  official  spies  in  each  of  the  fifty  wards  of 
the  city,  whose  business  it  was  to  keep  him  informed  of  the  smallest 
events,  and  all  that  went  on  in  the  houses  and  streets,  together  with 
their  conjectures  and  suspicions.  He  did  not  neglect  his  people  in 
any  way;  and  he  not  only  built  all  those  fine  public  edifices  in 
Florence,  —  having  merely  to  put  his  hand  in  his  people's  pocket  and 
do  it,  and  then  take  the  credit  of  them,  — but  he  seems  to  have  loved 
to  adorn  it  with  that  terrible  face  of  his  on  many  busts  and  statues. 
Its  ferocity,  as  Benvenuto  Cellini  has  frankly  recorded  it,  and  as  it 
betrays  itself  in  all  the  effigies,  is  something  to  appall  us  still ;  and 
whether  the  story  is  true  or  not,  you  see  in  it  a  man  capable  of 
striking  his  son  dead  in  his  mother's  arms.  To  be  sure,  Garzia  was 
not  Cosimo's  favorite,  and,  like  a  Medici,  he  had  killed  his  brother ; 
but  he  was  a  boy,  and  when  his  father  came  to  Pisa  to  find  him, 
where  he  had  taken  refuge  with  his  mother,  he  threw  himself  at 
Cosimo's  feet  and  implored  forgiveness.  "  I  want  no  Cains  in  my 
family ! "  said  the  father,  and  struck  him  with  the  dagger  which  he 
had  kept  hidden  in  his  breast.  "  Mother !  Mother  ! "  gasped  the  boy, 
and  fell  dead  in  the  arms  of  the  hapless  woman,  who  had  urged  him 
to  trust  in  his  father's  mercy.  She  threw  herself  on  the  bed  where 
they  laid  her  dead  son,  and  never  looked  on  the  light  again.  Some 
say  she  died  of  grief,  some  that  she  starved  herself ;  in  a  week  she 
died,  and  was  carried  with  her  two  children  to  Florence,  where  it 
was  presently  made  known  that  all  three  had  fallen  victims  to  the 
bad  air  of  the  Maremma.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a  Spanish  king, 
and  eight  years  after  her  death  her  husband  married  the  vulgar  and 
ignoble  woman  who  had  long  been  his  mistress.  This  woman  was 
young,  handsome,  full  of  life,  and  she  queened  it  absolutely  over  the 
last  days  of  the  bloody  tyrant.  His  excesses  had  broken  Cosimo 
with  premature  decrepitude ;  he  was  helpless  in  the  hands  of  this 
creature,  from  whom  his  son  tried  to  separate  him  in  vain ;  and  hi; 
was  two  years  in  dying,  after  the  palsy  had  deprived  him  of  speech 
and  motion,  but  left  him  able  to  think  and  to  remember ! 
'  The  son  was  that  Francesco  I.  who  is  chiefly  known  to  fame  as 


84  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

the  lover  and  then  the  husband  of  Bianca  Cappello,  —  to  so  little 
may  a  sovereign  prince  come  in  the  crowded  and  busy  mind  of  after- 
time.  This  grand  duke  had  his  courts  and  his  camps,  his  tribunals 
and  audiences,  his  shows  of  authority  and  government ;  but  what  we 
see  of  him  at  this  distance  is  the  luxurious  and  lawless  youth,  sated 
with  every  indulgence,  riding  listlessly  by  under  the  window  of  the 
Venetian  girl  who  eloped  with  the  Florentine  banker's  clerk  from 
her  father's  palace  in  the  lagoons,  and  is  now  the  household  drudge 
of  her  husband's  family  in  Florence.  She  is  looking  out  of  the 
window  that  looks  on  Savonarola's  convent,  in  the  tallest  of  the 
stupid,  commonplace  houses  that  confront  it  across  the  square ;  and 
we  see  the  prince  and  her  as  their  eyes  meet,  and  the  work  is  done 
in  the  gunpowdery  way  of .  southern  passion.  We  see  her  again  at 
the  house  of  those  Spaniards  in  the  Via  de'  Banchi,  which  leads  out 
of  our  Piazza  Santa  Maria  Novella,  from  whence  the  Palazzo  Man- 
dragone  is  actually  in  sight ;  and  the  marchioness  is  showing  Bianca 
her  jewels  and —  Wait  a  moment!  There  is  something  else  the 
marchioness  wishes  to  show  her ;  she  will  go  get  it ;  and  when  the 
door  reopens  Francesco  enters,  protesting  his  love,  to  Bianca' s  con- 
fusion, and  no  doubt  to  her  surprise ;  for  how  could  she  suppose  he 
would  be  there  ?  We  see  her  then  at  the  head  of  the  grand-ducal 
court,  the  poor,  plain  Austrian  wife  thrust  aside  to  die  in  neglect ; 
and  then  when  Bianca's  husband,  whom  his  honors  and  good  fortune 
have  rendered  intolerably  insolent,  is  slain  by  some  of  the  duke's 
gentlemen,  —  in  the  narrow  street  at  Santo  Spirito,  hard  by  the 
handsome  house  in  Via  Maggio  which  the  duke  has  given  her,  —  we 
see  them  married,  and  receiving  in  state  the  congratulations  of 
Bianca's  father  and  brother,  who  have  come  on  a  special  embassy 
from  Venice  to  proclaim  the  distinguished  lady  Daughter  of  the 
Kepublic,  —  and,  of  course,  to  withdraw  the  price  hitherto  set  upon 
her  head.  We  see  them  then  in  the  sort  of  life  which  must  always 
follow  from  such  love,  —  the  grand  duke  had  spent  three  hundred 
thousand  ducats  in  the  celebration  of  his  nuptials,  —  overeating, 
overdrinking,  and  seeking  their  gross  pleasures  amid  the  ruin  of  the 
State.     We  see  them  trying  to  palm  off  a  supposititious  child  upon 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  85 

the  Cardinal  Ferdinand,  who  was  the  true  heir  to  his  brother,  and 
would  have  none  of  his  spurious  nephew ;  and  we  see  these  three 
sitting  down  in  the  villa  at  Poggio  a  Caiano  to  the  famous  tart 
which  Bianca,  remembering  the  skill  of  her  first  married  days,  has 
made  with  her  own  hands,  and  which  she  courteously  presses  the 
Cardinal  to  be  the  first  to  partake  of.  He  politely  refuses,  being  pro- 
vided with  a  ring  of  admirable  convenience  at  that  time  in  Italy,  set 
with  a  stone  that  turned  pale  in  the  presence  of  poison.  "  Some  one 
has  to  begin,"  cries  Francesco,  impatiently ;  and  in  spite  of  his  wife's 
signs  —  she  was  probably  treading  on  his  foot  under  the  table,  and 
frowning  at  him  —  he  ate  of  the  mortal  viand ;  and  then  in  despair 
Bianca  ate  too,  and  they  both  died.  Is  this  tart  perhaps  too  much 
for  the  reader's  digestion?  There  is  another  story,  then,  to  the  effect 
that  the  grand  duke  died  of  the  same  malarial  fever  that  carried  off 
his  brothers  Garzia  and  Giovanni,  and  Bianca  perished  of  terror  and 
apprehension ;  and  there  is  still  another  story  that  the  Cardinal 
poisoned  them  both.  Let  the  reader  take  his  choice  of  them ;  in  any 
case,  it  is  an  end  of  Francesco,  whom,  as  I  said,  the  world  remem- 
bers so  little  else  of. 

It  almost  forgets  that  he  was  privy  to  the  murder  of  his  sister 
Isabella  by  her  husband  Paolo  Orsini,  and  of  his  sister-in-law  Eleo- 
nora  by  her  husband  Pietro  de'  Medici.  The  grand  duke,  who  was 
then  in  the  midst  of  his  intrigue  with  Bianca,  was  naturally  jealous 
of  the  purity  of  his  family ;  and  as  it  has  never  been  denied  that 
both  of  those  unhappy  ladies  had  wronged  their  husbands,  I  suppose 
he  can  be  justified  by  the  moralists  who  contend  that  what  is  a  venial 
lapse  in  a  man  is  worthy  death,  or  something  like  it,  in  a  woman. 
About  the  taking-off  of  Eleonora,  however,  there  was  something 
gross,  Medicean,  butcherly,  which  all  must  deprecate,  She  knew  she 
was  to  be  killed,  poor  woman,  as  soon  as  her  intrigue  was  discovered 
to  the  grand  duke ;  and  one  is  not  exactly  able  to  sympathize  with 
either  the  curiosity  or  the  trepidation  of  that  "celebrated  Koman 
singer  "  who  first  tampered  with  the  letter  from  her  lover,  intrusted 
to  him,  and  then,  terrified  at  its  nature,  gave  it  to  Francesco.  When 
her  husband  sent  for  her  to  come  to  him  at  his  villa,  she  took  leave 


86  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

of  her  child  as  for  the  last  time,  and  Pietro  met  her  in  the  dark  of 
their  chamber  and  plunged  his  dagger  into  her  breast. 

The  affair  of  Isabella  Orsini  was  managed  with  much  greater  taste, 
with  a  sort  of  homicidal  grace,  a  sentiment,  if  one  may  so  speak, 
worthy  a  Roman  prince  and  a  lady  so  accomplished.  She  was 
Cosimo's  favorite,  and  she  was  beautiful,  gifted,  and  learned,  knowing 
music,  knowing  languages,  and  all  the  gentler  arts ;  but  one  of  her 
lovers  had  just  killed  her  page,  whom  he  was  jealous  of,  and  the 
scandal  was  very  great,  so  that  her  brother,  the  grand  duke,  felt  that 
he  ought,  for  decency's  sake,  to  send  to  Eome  for  her  husband,  and 
arrange  her  death  with  him.  She,  too,  like  Eleonora,  had  her  fore- 
bodings, when  Paolo  Orsini  asked  her  to  their  villa  (it  seems  to  have 
been  the  custom  to  devote  the  peaceful  seclusion  of  the  country  to 
these  domestic  rites) ;  but  he  did  what  he  could  to  allay  her  fears  by 
his  affectionate  gayety  at  supper,  and  his  gift  of  either  of  those  stag- 
hounds  which  he  had  brought  in  for  her  to  choose  from  against  the 
hunt  planned  for  the  morrow,  as  well  as  by  the  tender  politeness 
with  which  he  invited  her  to  follow  him  to  their  room.  At  the  door 
we  may  still  see  her  pause,  after  so  many  years,  and  turn  wistfully 
to  her  lady  in  waiting :  — 

"  Madonna  Lucrezia,  shall  I  go  or  shall  I  not  go  to  my  husband  ? 
What  do  you  say  ? " 

And  Madonna  Lucrezia  Frescobaldi  answers,  with  the  irresponsible 
shrug  which  we  can  imagine :  "  Do  what  you  like.  Still,  he  is  your 
husband ! " 

She  enters,  and  Paolo  Orsini,  a  prince  and  a  gentleman,  knows  how 
to  be  as  sweet  as  before,  and  without  once  passing  from  caresses  to 
violence,  has  that  silken  cord  about  her  neck  — 

Terrible  stories,  which  I  must  try  to  excuse  myself  for  telling  the 
thousandth  time.  At  least,  I  did  not  invent  them.  They  are  all 
part  of  the  intimate  life  of  the  same  family,  and  the  reader  must 
group  them  in  his  mind  to  get  an  idea  of  what  Florence  must  have 
been  under  the  first  and  second  grand  dukes.  Cosimo  is  believed  to 
have  killed  his  son  Garzia,  who  had  stabbed  his  brother  Giovanni. 
His  son  Pietro  kills  his  wife,  and  his  daughter  Isabella  is  strangled 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  87 

by  her  husband,  both  murders  being  done  with  the  knowledge  and 
approval  of  the  reigning  prince.  Francesco  and  Bianca  his  wife  die 
of  poison  intended  for  Ferdinand,  or  of  poison  given  them  by  him. 
On  these  facts  throw  the  light  of  St.  Bartholomew's  day  in  Paris, 
whither  Catharine  de'  Medici,  the  cousin  of  these  homicides,  had 
carried  the  methods  and  morals  of  her  family,  and  you  begin  to 
realize  the  Medici. 

By  what  series  of  influences  and  accidents  did  any  race  accumulate 
the  enormous  sum  of  evil  which  is  but  partly  represented  in  these 
crimes  ?  By  what  process  was  that  evil  worked  out  of  the  blood  ? 
Had  it  wreaked  its  terrible  force  in  violence,  and  did  it  then  no 
longer  exist,  like  some  explosive  which  has  been  fired  ?  These  would 
be  interesting  questions  for  the  casuist ;  and  doubtless  such  questions 
will  yet  come  to  be  -studied  with  the  same  scientific  minuteness  which 
is  brought  to  the  solution  of  contemporary  social  problems.  The 
Medici,  a  family  of  princes  and  criminals,  may  come  to  be  studied 
like  the  Jukes,  a  family  of  paupers  and  criminals.  What  we  know 
at  present  is,  that  the  evil  in  them  did  seem  to  die  out  in  process  of 
time ;  though,  to  be  sure,  the  Medici  died  with  it.  That  Ferdinand 
who  succeeded  Francesco,  whichever  poisoned  the  other,  did  prove 
a  wise  and  beneficent  ruler,  filling  Tuscany  with  good  works,  moral 
and  material,  and,  by  his  marriage  with  Catharine  of  Lorraine, 
bringing  that  good  race  to  Florence,  where  it  afterwards  reigned  so 
long  in  the  affections  of  the  people.  His  son  Cosimo  II.  was  like 
him,  but  feebler,  as  a  copy  always  is,  with  a  dominant  desire  to  get 
the  sepulchre  of  our  Lord  away  from  the  Turks  to  Florence,  and  long 
waging  futile  war  to  that  end.  In  the  time  of  Ferdinand  II.,  Tus- 
cany, with  the  rest  of  Italy,  was  wasted  by  the  wars  of  the  French, 
Spaniards,  and  Germans,  who  found  it  convenient  to  fight  them  out 
there,  and  by  famine  and  pestilence.  But  the  grand  duke  was  a  well- 
meaning  man  enough ;  he  protected  the  arts  and  sciences  as  he  got 
the  opportunity,  and  he  did  his  best  to  protect  Galileo  against  the 
Pope  and  the  inquisitors.  Cosimo  III.,  who  followed  him,  was  obliged 
to  harass  his  subjects  with  taxes  to  repair  the  ruin  of  the  wars  in  his 
father's  reign ;  he  was  much  given  to  works  of  piety,  and  he  had  a 


88  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

wife  who  hated  him,  and  finally  forsook  him  and  went  back  to 
France,  her  own  country.  He  reigned  fifty  years,  and  after  him 
came  his  son  Gian  Gastone,  the  last  of  his  line.  He  was  a  person, 
by  all  accounts,  who  wished  men  well  enough,  but,  knowing  himself 
destined  to  leave  no  heir  to  the  throne,  was  disposed  rather  to  enjoy 
what  was  left  of  his  life  than  trouble  himself  about  the  affairs  of 
state.  Germany,  France,  England,  and  Holland  had  already  provided 
him  with  a  successor,  by  the  treaty  of  London,  in  1718  ;  and  when 
Gian  Gastone  died,  in  1737,  Francis  II.  of  Lorraine  became  Grand 
Duke  of  Tuscany. 

XXVIII. 

Undek  the  later  Medici  the  Florentines  were  drawing  towards  the 
long  quiet  which  they  enjoyed  under  their  Lorrainese  dukes,  —  the 
first  of  whom,  as  is  well  known,  left  being  their  duke  to  go  and  be 
husband  of  Maria  Theresa  and  emperor  consort.  Their  son,  Pietro 
Leopoldo,  succeeded  him  in  Tuscany,  and  became  the  author  of 
reforms  in  the  civil,  criminal,  and  ecclesiastical  law,  which  then 
astonished  all  Europe,  and  which  tardy  civilization  still  lags  behind 
in  some  things.  For  example,  Leopold  found  that  the  abolition  of 
the  death  penalty  resulted  not  in  more,  but  in  fewer  crimes  of  vio- 
lence ;  yet  the  law  continues  to  kill  murderers,  even  in  Massachu- 
setts. 

He  lived  to  see  the  outbreak  of  the  French  revolution,  and  his 
son,  Ferdinand  I  IT.,  was  driven  out  by  the  forces  of  the  Eepublic  in 
1796,  after  which  Tuscany  rapidly  underwent  the  Napoleonic  meta- 
morphoses, and  was  republican  under  the  Directory,  regal  under 
Lodovico  I.,  Bonaparte's  king  of  Etruria,  and  grand-ducal  under 
Napoleon's  sister,  Elisa  Bacciocchi.  Then,  in  1816,  Ferdinand  III. 
came  back,  and  he  and  his  descendants  reigned  till  1848,  when  Leo- 
pold II.  was  driven  out,  to  return  the  next  year  with  the  Austrians. 
Ten  years  later  he  again  retired,  and  in  1860  Tuscany  united  herself 
by  popular  vote  to  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  of  which  Florence  became 
the  capital,  and  so  remained  till  the  French  evacuated  Eome  in 
1871. 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  89 

The  time  from  the  restoration  of  Ferdinand  III.  till  the  first 
expulsion  of  Leopold  II.  must  always  be  attractive  to  the  student 
of  Italian  civilization  as  the  period  in  which  the  milder  Lorrainese 
traditions  permitted  the  germs  of  Italian  literature  to  live  in  Flor- 
ence, while  everywhere  else  the  native  and  foreign  despotisms  sought 
diligently  to  destroy  them,  instinctively  knowing  them  to  be  the 
germs  of  Italian  liberty  and  nationality ;  but  I  confess  that  the  time 
of  the  first  Leopold's  reign  has  a  greater  charm  for  my  fancy.  It  is 
like  a  long  stretch  of  sunshine  in  that  lurid,  war-clouded  landscape 
of  history,  full  of  repose  and  genial,  beneficent  growth.  For  twenty- 
five  years,  apparently,  the  good  prince  got  up  at  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  dried  the  tears  of  his  people.  To  be  more  specific,  he 
"  formed  the  generous  project,"  according  to  Signor  Bacciotti,  by 
whose  "  Firenze  Illustrata "  I  would  not  thanklessly  profit,  "  of  re- 
storing Tuscany  to  her  original  happy  state," — which,  I  think,  must 
have  been  prehistoric.  "  His  first  occupation  was  to  reform  the  laws, 
simplifying  the  civil  and  mitigating  the  criminal ;  and  the  volumes 
are  ten  that  contain  his  wise  statutes,  edicts,  and  decrees.  In  his 
time,  ten  years  passed  in  which  no  drop  of  blood  was  shed  on  the 
scaffold.  Prisoners  suffered  no  corporeal  penalty  but  the  loss  of 
liberty.  The  amelioration  of  the  laws  improved  the  public  morals; 
grave  crimes,  after  the  abolition  of  the  cruel  punishments,  became 
rare,  and  for  three  months  at  one  period  the  prisons  of  Tuscany 
remained  empty.  The  hospitals  that  Leopold  founded,  and  the  order 
and  propriety  in  which  he  kept  them,  justly  entitled  him  to  the 
name  of  Father  of  the  Poor.  The  education  he  gave  his  children 
aimed  to  render  them  compassionate  and  beneficent  to  their  fellow- 
beings,  and  to  make  them  men  rather  than  princes.  An  illustrious 
Englishman,  then  living  in  Florence,  and  consequently  an  eye-witness, 
wrote  of  him :  '  Leopold  loves  his  people.  He  has  abolished  all  the 
imposts  which  were  not  necessary ;  he  has  dismissed  nearly  all  his 
soldiers ;  he  has  destroyed  the  fortifications  of  Pisa,  whose  main- 
tenance was  extremely  expensive,  overthrowing  the  stones  that  de- 
voured men.  He  observed  that  his  court  concealed  him  from  his 
»people  ;  he  no  longer  has  a  court.     He  has  established  manufactures, 


90  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

and  opened  superb  roads  at  his  own  cost,  and  founded  hospitals. 
These  might  be  called,  in  Tuscany,  the  palaces  of  the  grand  duke. 
I  visited  them,  and  found  throughout  cleanliness,  order,  and  delicate 
and  attentive  treatment ;  I  saw  sick  old  men,  who  were  cared  for  as 
if  by  their  own  sons  ;  helpless  children  watched  over  with  a  mother's 
care ;  and  that  luxury  of  pity  and  humanity  brought  happy  tears  to 
my  eyes.  The  prince  often  repairs  to  these  abodes  of  sorrow  and 
pain,  and  never  quits  them  without  leaving  joy  behind  him,  and 
coming  away  loaded  with  blessings :  you  might  fancy  you  heard  the 
expression  of  a  happy  people's  gratitude,  but  that  hymn  rises  from 
a  hospital.  The  palace  of  Leopold,  like  the  churches,  is  open  to  all 
without  distinction ;  three  days  of  the  week  are  devoted  to  one  class 
of  persons ;  it  is  not  that  of  the  great,  the  rich,  the  artists,  the 
foreigners ;  it  is  that  of  the  unfortunate !  In  many  countries,  com- 
merce and  industry  have  become  the  patrimony  of  the  few :  in 
Tuscany,  all  that  know  how  may  do ;  there  is  but  one  exclusive 
privilege,  —  ability.  Leopold  has  enriched  the  year  with  a  great 
number  of  work-days,  which  he  took  from  idleness  and  gave  back 
to  agriculture,  to  the  arts,  to  good  morals.  .  .  .  The  grand  duke 
always  rises  before  the  sun,  and  when  that  beneficent  star  rejoices 
nature  with  its  rays,  the  good  prince  has  already  dried  many 
tears.  .  .  .  Leopold  is  happy,  because  his  people  are  happy ;  he  be- 
lieves in  God  ;  and  what  must  be  his  satisfaction  when,  before  closing 
his  eyes  at  night,  before  permitting  himself  to  sleep,  he  renders  an 
account  to  the  Supreme  Being  of  the  happiness  of  a  million  of  sub- 
jects during  the  course  of  the  day  ! '  " 

English  which  has  once  been  Italian  acquires  an  emotionality 
which  it  does  not  perhaps  wholly  lose  in  returning  to  itself ;  and 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  language  of  the  illustrious  stranger,  whom  I 
quote  at  second  hand,  has  not  kept  some  terms  which  are  native  to 
Signor  Bacciotti  rather  than  himself.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
he  was  an  eighteenth-century  Englishman,  and  perhaps  expressed  him- 
self much  in  this  way.  The  picture  he  draws,  if  a  little  too  idyllic, 
too  pastoral,  too  operatic,  for  our  realization,  must  still  have  been 
founded  on  fact,  and  I  hope  it  is  at  least  as  true  as  those  which 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  91 

commemorate  the  atrocities  of  the  Medici.  At  any  rate  it  is  de- 
lightful, and  one  may  as  probably  derive  the  softness  of  the  modern 
Florentine  morals  and  manners  from  the  benevolence  of  Leopold  as 
from  the  ferocity  of  Cosimo.  Considering  what  princes  mostly  were 
in  the  days  when  they  could  take  themselves  seriously,  and  still  are 
now  when  I  should  think  they  would  give  themselves  the  wink  on 
seeing  their  faces  in  the  glass,  I  am  willing  to  allow  that  kindly 
despot  of  a  Leopold  all  the  glory  that  any  history  may  claim  for 
him.  He  had  the  genius  of  humanity,  and  that  is  about  the  only 
kind  of  genius  which  is  entitled  to  reverence  in  this  world.  If  he 
perhaps  conceived  of  men  as  his  children  rather  than  his  brothers 
still  he  wished  them  well  and  did  them  all  the  good  he  knew  how. 
After  a  hundred  years  it  must  be  allowed  that  we  have  made  a 
considerable  advance  beyond  him  —  in  theory. 

XXIX. 

What  society  in  Florence  may  now  be  like  underneath  its  super- 
ficial effect  of  gentleness  and  placidity,  the  stranger,  who  reflects  how 
little  any  one  really  knows  of  his  native  civilization,  will  carefully 
guard  himself  from  saying  upon  his  own  authority.  From  the  report 
of  others,  of  people  who  had  lived  long  in  Florence  and  were  qualified 
in  that  degree  to  speak,  one  might  say  a  great  deal,  —  a  great  deal 
that  would  be  more  and  less  than  true.  A  brilliant  and  accomplished 
writer,  a  stranger  naturalized  by  many  years'  sojourn,  and  of  an 
imaginable  intimacy  with  his  subject,  sometimes  spoke  to  me  of  a 
decay  of  manners  which  he  had  noticed  in  his  time :  the  peasants 
no  longer  saluted  persons  of  civil  condition  in  meeting  them;  the 
young  nobles,  if  asked  to  a  ball,  ascertained  that  there  was  going  to 
be  supper  before  accepting.  I  could  not  find  these  instances  very 
shocking,  upon  reflection  ;  and  I  was  not  astonished  to  hear  that  the 
sort  of  rich  American  girls  who  form  the  chase  of  young  Florentine 
noblemen  show  themselves  indifferent  to  untitled  persons.  There 
was  something  more  of  instruction  in  the  fact  that  these  fortune- 
hunters  care  absolutely  nothing  for  youth  or  beauty,  wit  or  character.. 


92  TUSCAN  CITIES.   0 

in  their  prey,  and  ask  nothing  but  money.  This  implies  certain  other 
facts,  —  certain  compensations  and  consolations,  which  the  American 
girl  with  her  heart  set  upon  an  historical  name  would  be  the  last  to 
consider.  What  interested  me  more  was  the  witness  which  this 
gentleman  bore,  with  others,  to  the  excellent  stuff  of  the  peasants, 
whom  he  declared  good  and  honest,  and  full  of  simple,  kindly  force 
and  uprightness.  The  citizen  class,  on  the  other  hand,  was  unen- 
lightened and  narrow-minded,  and  very  selfish  towards  those  beneath 
them ;  he  believed  that  a  peasant,  for  example,  who  cast  his  lot  in 
the  city,  would  encounter  great  unfriendliness  in  them  if  he  showed 
the  desire  and  the  ability  to  rise  above  his  original  station.  Both 
from  this  observer,  and  from  other  foreigners  resident  in  Florence, 
I  heard  that  the  Italian  nobility  are  quite  apart  from  the  national 
life ;  they  have  no  political  influence,  and  are  scarcely  a  social  power ; 
there  are,  indeed,  but  three  of  the  old  noble  families  founded  by  the 
German  emperors  remaining,  —  the  Eicasoli,  the  Gherardeschi,  and 
the  Stufe ;  and  a  title  counts  absolutely  for  nothing  with  the  Italians. 
At  the  same  time  a  Corsini  was  syndic  of  Florence ;  all  the  dead  walls 
invited  me  to  "  vote  for  Peruzzi "  in  the  approaching  election  for  dep- 
uty, and  at  the  last  election  a  Ginori  had  been  chosen.  It  is  very 
hard  to  know  about  these  things,  and  I  am  not  saying  my  informants 
were  wrong :  but  it  is  right  to  oppose  to  theirs  the  declaration  of 
the  intelligent  and  sympathetic  scholar  with  whom  I  took  my  walks 
about  Florence,  and  who  said  that  there  was  great  good-will  between 
the  people  and  the  historical  families,  who  were  in  thorough  accord 
with  the  national  aspirations  and  endeavors.  Again,  I  say,  it  is 
difficult  to  know  the  truth ;  but  happily  the  truth  in  this  case  is 
not  important. 

One  of  the  few  acquaintances  I  made  with  Italians  outside  of 
the  English-speaking  circles  was  that  of  a  tradesman  who,  in  the 
intervals  of  business,  was  reading  Shakspeare  in  English,  and  —  if  I 
may  say  it  —  "Venetian  Life."  I  think  some  Americans  had  lent 
him  the  latter  classic.  I  did  not  learn  from  him  that  many  other 
Florentine  tradesmen  gave  their  leisure  to  the  same  literature;  in 
fact,  I  inferred  that,  generally  speaking,  there  was  not  much  interest 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  93 

in  any  sort  of  literature  among  the  Florentines ;  and  I  only  mention 
him  in  the  hope  of  throwing  some  light  upon  the  problem  with  which 
we  are  playing.  He  took  me  one  night  to  the  Literary  Club,  of 
which  he  was  a  member,  and  of  which  the  Marchese  Eicci  is  presi- 
dent ;  and  I  could  not  see  that  any  presentation  could  have  availed 
me  more  than  his  with  that  nobleman  or  the  other  nobleman  who 
was  secretary.  The  president  shook  my  hand  in  a  friendly  despair, 
perfectly  evident,  of  getting  upon  any  common  ground  with  me ;  and 
the  secretary,  after  asking  me  if  I  knew  Doctor  Holmes,  had  an  ami- 
able effect  of  being  cast  away  upon  the  sea  of  American  literature. 
These  gentlemen,  as  I  understood,  came  every  week  to  the  club,  and 
assisted  at  its  entertainments,  which  were  sometimes  concerts,  some- 
times lectures  and  recitations,  and  sometimes  conversation  merely, 
for  which  I  found  the  empty  chairs,  on  my  entrance,  arranged  in 
groups  of  threes  and  fives  about  the  floor,  with  an  air  perhaps  of  too 
great  social  premeditation.  Presently  there  was  playing  on  the  piano, 
and  at  the  end  the  president  shook  hands  with  the  performer.  If 
there  was  anything  of  the  snobbishness  which  poisons  such  inter- 
course for  our  race,  I  could  not  see  it.  May  be  snobbishness,  like 
gentlemanliness,  is  not  appreciable  from  one  race  to  another. 

XXX. 

My  acquaintance,  whom  I  should  grieve  to  make  in  any  sort  a 
victim  by  my  personalities,  did  me  the  pleasure  to  take  me  over  the 
little  ancestral  farm  which  he  holds  just  beyond  one  of  the  gates ; 
and  thus  I  got  at  one  of  the  homely  aspects  of  life  which  the  stranger 
is  commonly  kept  aloof  from.  A  narrow  lane,  in  which  some  boys 
were  pitching  stones  for  quoits  in  the  soft  Sunday  afternoon  sun- 
shine, led  up  from  the  street  to  the  farm-house,  where  one  wandering 
roof  covered  house,  stables,  and  offices  with  its  mellow  expanse  of 
brown  tiles.  A  door  opening  flush  upon  the  lane  admitted  us  to 
the  picturesque  interior,  which  was  divided  into  the  quarters  of  the 
farmer  and  his  family,  and  the  apartment  which  the  owner  occupied 
'during  the  summer  heats.     This  contained  half  a  dozen  pleasant 


94  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

rooms,  chief  of  which  was  the  library,  overflowing  with  books  repre- 
senting all  the  rich  past  of  Italian  literature  in  poetry,  history,  and 
philosophy,  —  the  collections  of  my  host's  father  and  grandfather. 
On  the  table  he  opened  a  bottle  of  the  wine  made  on  his  farm ;  and 
then  he  took  me  up  to  the  terrace  at  the  house-top  for  the  beautiful 
view  of  the  city,  and  the  mountains  beyond  it,  streaked  with  snow. 
The  floor  of  the  terrace,  which,  like  all  the  floors  of  the  house,  was  of 
brick,  was  heaped  with  olives  from  the  orchard  on  the  hillside  which 
bounded  the  little  farm ;  but  I  could  see  from  this  point  how  it  was 
otherwise  almost  wholly  devoted  to  market-gardening.  The  grass 
keeps  green  all  winter  long  at  Florence,  not  growing,  but  never 
withering ;  and  there  were  several  sorts  of  vegetables  in  view,  in  the 
same  sort  of  dreamy  arrest.  Between  the  rows  of  cabbages  I  noticed 
the  trenches  for  irrigation ;  and  I  lost  my  heart  to  the  wide,  deep  well 
under  the  shed-roof  below,  with  a  wheel,  picturesque  as  a  mill-wheel, 
for  pumping  water  into  these  trenches.  The  farm  implements  and 
heavier  household  utensils  were  kept  in  order  here ;  and  among  the 
latter  was  a  large  wash-tub  of  fine  earthenware,  which  had  been  in 
use  there  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  My  friend  led  the  way  up 
the  slopes  of  his  olive-orchard,  where  some  olives  still  lingered  amon<? 
the  willow-like  leaves,  and  rewarded  my  curious  palate  with  the 
insipidity  of  the  olive  which  has  not  been  salted.  Then  we  returned 
to  the  house,  and  explored  the  cow-stables,  where  the  well-kept 
Italian  kine  between  their  stone  walls  were  much  warmer  than 
most  Italian  Christians  in  Florence.  In  a  large  room  next  the 
stable  and  behind  the  kitchen  the  farm-people  were  assembled,  men, 
women,  and  children,  in  their  Sunday  best,  who  all  stood  up  when 
we  came  in,  —  all  but  two  very  old  men,  who  sat  in  the  chimney 
and  held  out  their  hands  over  the  fire  that  sent  its  smoke  up 
between  them.  Their  eyes  were  bleared  with  age,  and  I  doubt 
if  they  made  out  what  it  was  all  about ;  but  they  croaked  back  a 
pleasant  answer  to  my  host's  salutation,  and  then  let  their  mouths 
fall  open  again  and  kept  their  hands  stretched  over  the  fire.  It 
would  be  very  hard  to  say  just  why  these  old  men  were  such  a 
pleasure  to  me. 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  95 

XXXI. 

One  January  afternoon  I  idled  into  the  Baptistery,  to  take  my 
chance  of  seeing  some  little  one  made  a  Christian,  where  so  many 
babes,  afterwards  memorable  for  good  and  evil,  had  been  baptized ; 
and,  to  be  sure,  there  was  the  conventional  Italian  infant  of  civil 
condition  tied  up  tight  in  the  swathing  of  its  civilization,  perfectly 
quiescent,  except  for  its  feebly  wiggling  arms,  and  undergoing  the 
rite  with  national  patience.  It  lay  in  the  arms  of  a  half-grown  boy, 
probably  its  brother,  and  there  were  the  father  and  the  nurse ;  the 
mother  of  so  young  a  child  could  not  come,  of  course.  The  officiat- 
ing priest,  with  spectacles  dropped  quite  to  the  point  of  his  nose, 
mumbled  the  rite  from  his  book,  and  the  assistant,  with  one  hand 
in  his  pocket,  held  a  negligently  tilted  taper  in  the  other.  Then  the 
priest  lifted  the  lid  of  the  font  in  which  many  a  renowned  poet's, 
artist's,  tyrant's,  philanthropist's  twisted  little  features  were  similarly 
reflected,  and  poured  on  the  water,  rapidly  drying  the  poor  little 
skull  with  a  single  wipe  of  a  napkin ;  then  the  servant  in  attendance 
powdered  the  baby's  head,  and  the  group,  grotesquely  inattentive 
throughout  to  the  sacred  rite,  dispersed,  and  left  me  and  a  German 
family  who  had  looked  on  with  murmurs  of  sympathy  for  the  child 
to  overmaster  as  we  might  any  interest  we  had  felt  in  a  matter  that 
had  apparently  not  concerned  them. 

One  is  always  coming  upon  this  sort  of  thing  in  the  Italian 
churches,  this  droll  nonchalance  in  the  midst  of  religious  solemnities, 
which  I  suppose  is  promoted  somewhat  by  the  invasions  of  sight- 
seeing everywhere.  In  the  Church  of  the  Badia  at  Florence,  one  day, 
the  indifference  of  the  tourists  and  the  worshippers  to  one  another's 
presence  was  carried  to  such  a  point  that  the  boy  who  was  showing 
the  strangers  about,  and  was  consequently  in  their  interest,  drew  the 
curtain  of  a  picture,  and  then,  with  his  back  to  a  group  of  kneeling 
devotees,  balanced  himself  on  the  chapel-rail  and  sat  swinging  his 
legs  there,  as  if  it  had  been  a  store-box  on  a  curbstone. 

Perhaps  we  do  not  sufficiently  account  for  the  domestication  of 
the  people  of  Latin  countries  in  their  every-day-open  church.     They 


96  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

are  quite  at  their  ease  there,  whereas  we  are  as  unhappy  in  ours  as 
if  we  were  at  an  evening  party ;  we  wear  all  our  good  clothes,  and 
they  come  into  the  houses  of  their  Father  in  any  rag  they  chance  to 
have  on,  and  are  at  home  there.  I  have  never  seen  a  more  careless 
and  familiar  group  than  that  of  which  I  was  glad  to  form  one,  in  the 
Church  of  Ognissanti,  one  day.  I  had  gone,  in  my  quality  of  Ameri- 
can, to  revere  the  tablet  to  Amerigo  Vespucci  which  is  there,  and  I 
found  the  great  nave  of  the  church  occupied  by  workmen  who  were 
putting  together  the  foundations  of  a  catafalque,  hammering  away, 
and  chatting  cheerfully,  with  their  mouths  full  of  tacks  and  pins, 
and  the  funereal  frippery  of  gold,  black,  and  silver  braid  all  about 
them.  The  church-beggars  had  left  their  posts  to  come  and  gossip 
with  them,  and  the  grandchildren  of  these  old  women  were  playing 
back  and  forth  over  the  structure,  unmolested  by  the  workmen,  and 
unawed  either  by  the  function  going  on  in  a  distant  chapel  or  by  the 
theatrical  magnificence  of  the  sculptures  around  them  and  the  fresco 
overhead,  where  a  painted  colonnade  lifted  another  roof  high  above 
the  real  vault. 

I  liked  all  this,  and  I  could  not  pass  a  church  door  without  the 
wish  to  go  in,  not  only  for  the  pictures  or  statues  one  might  see,  but 
for  the  delightfully  natural  human  beings  one  could  always  be  sure 
of.  Italy  is  above  all  lands  the  home  of  human  nature,  —  simple, 
unabashed  even  in  the  presence  of  its  Maker,  who  is  probably  not 
so  much  ashamed  of  his  work  as  some  would  like  to  have  us  think. 
In  the  churches,  the  beggary  which  the  civil  government  has  dis- 
heartened almost  out  of  existence  in  the  streets  is  still  fostered,  and 
an  aged  crone  with  a  scaldino  in  her  lap,  a  tattered  shawl  over  her 
head,  and  an  outstretched,  skinny  palm,  guards  the  portal  of  every 
sanctuary.  She  has  her  chair,  and  the  church  is  literally  her  home ; 
she  does  all  but  eat  and  sleep  there.  For  the  rest,  these  interiors 
had  not  so  much  novelty  as  the  charm  of  old  association  for  me. 
Either  I  had  not  enlarged  my  interests  in  the  twenty  years  since  I 
had  known  them,  or  else  they  had  remained  unchanged ;  there  was 
the  same  old  smell  of  incense,  the  same  chill,  the  same  warmth,  the 
same  mixture  of  glare  and  shadow.     A  function  in  progress  at  a 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  97 

remote  altar,  the  tapers  starring  the  distant  dusk;  the  straggling 
tourists ;  the  sacristan,  eager,  but  not  too  persistent  with  his  tale  of 
some  special  attraction  at  one's  elbow ;  the  worshippers,  all  women  or 
old  men ;  a  priest  hurrying  to  or  from  the  sacristy ;  the  pictures, 
famous  or  unknown,  above  the  side  altars ;  the  monuments,  serious 
Gothic  or  strutting  rococo,  —  all  was  there  again,  just  as  it  used 
to  be. 

But  the  thing  that  was  really  novel  to  me,  who  found  the  churches 
of  1883  in  Florence  so  like  the  churches  of  1863  in  Venice,  was  the 
loveliness  of  the  deserted  cloisters  belonging  to  so  many  of  the  for- 
mer. These  enclose  nearly  always  a  grass-grown  space,  where  daisies 
and  dandelions  began  to  abound  with  the  earliest  consent  of  spring. 
Most  public  places  and  edifices  in  Italy  have  been  so  much  photo- 
graphed that  few  have  any  surprise  left  in  them :  one  is  sure  that 
one  has  seen  them  before ;  but  the  cloisters  are  not  yet  the  prey  of 
this  sort  of  pre-acquaintance.  "Whether  the  vaults  and  walls  of  the 
colonnades  are  beautifully  frescoed,  like  -those  of  Sta.  Maria  Novella 
or  Sta.  Annunziata  or  San  Marco,  or  the  place  has  no  attraction  but 
its  grass  and  sculptured  stone,  it  is  charming;  and  these  cloisters 
linger  in  my  mind  as  something  not  less  Florentine  in  character  than 
the  Ponte  Vecchio  or  the  Palazzo  Publico.  I  remember  particularly 
an  evening  effect  in  the  cloister  of  Santa  Annunziata,  when  the  belfry 
in  the  corner,  lifted  aloft  on  its  tower,  showed  with  its  pendulous 
bells  like  a  great,  graceful  flower  against  the  dome  of  the  church 
behind  it.  The  quiet  in  the  place  was  almost  sensible ;  the  pale 
light,  suffused  with  rose,  had  a  delicate  clearness ;  there  was  a  little 
agreeable  thrill  of  cold  in  the  air ;  there  could  not  have  been  a  more 
refined  moment's  pleasure  offered  to  a  sympathetic  tourist  loitering 
slowly  homeward  to  his  hotel  and  its  table  d'hdte;  and  why  we  can- 
not have  old  cloisters  in  America,  where  we  are  getting  everything 
that  money  can  buy,  is  a  question  that  must  remain  to  vex  us.  A 
suppressed  convent  at  the  corner  of,  say,  Clarendon  Street  and  Com- 
monwealth Avenue,  where  the  new  Brattle  Street  church  is,  would 
be  a  great  pleasure  on  one's  way  home  in  the  afternoon ;  but  still  1 
should  lack  the  final  satisfaction  of  dropping  into  the  chapel  of  the 


98  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

Brothers  of  the  Misericordia,  a  little  farther  on  towards  Santa  Maria 
Novella. 

The  sentimentalist  may  despair  as  he  pleases,  and  have  his  fill  of 
panic  about  the  threatened  destruction  of  the  Ponte  Vecchio,  but  I 
say  that  while  these  brothers,  "  black-stoled,  black-hooded,  like  a 
dream,"  continue  to  light  the  way  to  dusty  death  with  their  flaring 
torches  through  the  streets  of  Florence,  the  mediaeval  tradition  re- 
mains unbroken ;  Italy  is  still  Italy.  They  knew  better  how  to  treat 
Death  in  the  Middle  Ages  than  we  do  now,  with  our  vain  profanation 
of  flowers  to  his  service,  our  loathsome  dapperness  of  "  burial  cas- 
kets," and  dress-coat  and  white  tie  for  the  dead.  Those  simple  old 
Florentines,  with  their  street  wars,  their  pestilences,  their  manifold 
destructive  violences,  felt  instinctively  that  he,  the  inexorable,  was 
not  to  be  hidden  or  palliated,  not  to  be  softened  or  prettified,  or  any- 
wise made  the  best  of,  but  was  to  be  confessed  in  all  his  terrible 
gloom ;  and  in  this  they  found,  not  comfort,  not  alleviation,  which 
time  alone  can  give,  but  the  amesthesis  of  a  freezing  horror.  Those 
masked  and  trailing  sable  figures,  sweeping  through  the  wide  and 
narrow  ways  by  night  to  the  wild,  long  rhythm  of  their  chant,  in  the 
red  light  of  their  streaming  torches,  and  bearing  the  heavily  draped 
bier  in  their  midst,  supremely  awe  the  spectator,  whose  heart  falters 
within  him  in  the  presence  of  that  which  alone  is  certain  to  be.  I 
cannot  say  they  are  so  effective  by  daylight,  when  they  are  carrying 
some  sick  or  wounded  person  to  the  hospital ;  they  have  not  their 
torches  then,  and  the  sun  seems  to  take  a  cynical  satisfaction  in 
showing  their  robes  to  be  merely  of  black  glazed  cotton.  An  ante- 
room of  their  chapel  was  fitted  with  locked  and  numbered  drawers, 
where  the  brothers  kept  their  robes ;  half  a  dozen  coffin-shaped  biers 
and  litters  stood  about,  and  the  floor  was  strewn  with  laurel-leaves, 
—  I  suppose  because  it  was  the  festa  of  St.  Sebastian. 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  101 

XXXII. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  festas  are  noticeably  fewer  than  they  used 
to  be  in  Italy.  There  are  still  enough  of  them  to  account  for  the 
delay  in  doing  almost  anything  that  has  been  promised  to  be  done. 
The  carnival  came  on  scatteringly  and  reluctantly.  A  large  sum  of 
money  which  had  been  raised  for  its  celebration  was  properly  diverted 
to  the  relief  of  the  sufferers  by  the  inundations  in  Lombardy  and 
Venetia,  and  the  Florentines  patiently  set  about  being  merry  each  on 
his  own  personal  account.  Not  many  were  visibly  merry,  except  in 
the  way  of  business.  The  gentlemen  of  the  operatic  choruses  clad 
themselves  in  stage-armor,  and  went  about  under  the  hotel-windows, 
playing  and  singing,  and  levying  contributions  on  the  inmates  ;  here 
and  there  a  white  clown  or  a  red  devil  figured  through  the  streets  ; 
two  or  three  carriages  feebly  attempted  a  corso,  and  there  was  an 
exciting  rumor  that  confetti  had  been  thrown  from  one  of  them :  I 
did  not  see  the  confetti.  There  was  for  a  long  time  doubt  whether 
there  was  to  be  any  veglione  or  ball  on  the  last  night  of  the  carnival ; 
but  finally  there  were  two  of  them :  one  of  low  degree  at  the  Teatro 
Umberto,  and  one  of  more  pretension  at  the  Pergola  Theatre.  The 
latter  presented  an  agreeable  image  of  the  carnival  ball  which  has 
taken  place  in  so  many  romances :  the  boxes  filled  with  brilliantly 
dressed  spectators,  drinking  champagne;  the  floor  covered  with 
maskers,  gibbering  in  falsetto,  dancing,  capering,  coquetting  till  day- 
light. This,  more  than  any  other  aspect  of  the  carnival,  seemed  to 
give  one  the  worth  of  his  money  in  tradition  and  association.  Not 
but  that  towards  the  end  the  masks  increased  in  the  streets,  and  the 
shops  where  they  sold  costumes  were  very  gay ;  but  the  thing  is 
dying  out,  as  at  least  one  Italian,  in  whose  veins  the  new  wine  of 
Progress  had  wrought,  rejoiced  to  tell  me.  I  do  not  know  whether 
I  rejoiced  so  much  to  hear  it ;  but  I  will  own  that  I  did  not  regret  it 
a  great  deal.  Italy  is  now  so  much  the  sojourn  of  barbarians  that 
any  such  gayety  must  be  brutalized  by  them,  till  the  Italians  turn 
from  it  in  disgust.  Then  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  carnival 
was  fostered  by  their  tyrants  to  corrupt  and  enervate  them  ;  and  I 


102 


TUSCAN   CITIES. 


cannot  wonder  that  their  love  of  Italy  is  wounded  by  it.  They  are 
trying  to  be  men,  and  the  carnival  is  childish.  I  fancy  that  is  the 
way  my  friend  felt  about  it. 


XXXIII. 

After  the  churches,  the  Italians  are  most  at  home   in  their  the- 
atres, and  I  went  as  often  as  I  could  to  see  them  there,  preferably 

where  they  were  giving  the  Sten- 
terello  plays.  Stenterello  is  the 
Florentine  mask  or  type  who 
survives  the  older  Italian  comedy 
which  Goldoni  destroyed;  and 
during  carnival  he  appeared  in  a 
great  variety  of  characters  at 
three  different  theatres.  He  is 
always  painted  with  wide  purp- 
lish circles  round  his  eyes,  with 
an  effect  of  ffo^gles,  and  a  hare- 
lip;  and  his  hair,  caught  into  a 
queue  behind,  curls  up  into  a 
pigtail  on  his  neck.  With  this 
face  and  this  wig  he  assumes  any 
character  the  farce  requires,  and 
becomes  delicious  in  proportion 
to  his  grotesque  unfitness  for  it.  •  The  best  Stenterello  was  an  old 
man,  since  dead,  who  was  very  famous  in  the  part.  He  was  of  such 
a  sympathetic  and  lovely  humor  that  your  heart  warmed  to  him 
the  moment  he  came  upon  the  stage,  and  when  he  opened  his  mouth, 
it  scarcely  mattered  what  he  said :  those  Tuscan  gutturals  and 
abounding  vowels  as  he  uttered  them  were  enough ;  but  certainly 
to  see  him  in  "  Stenterello  and  his  own  Corpse,"  or  "  Stenterello  Um- 
brella-mender;' or  "  Stenterello  Quack  Doctor  "  was  one  of  the  great 
and  simple  pleasures.  He  was  an  actor  who  united  the  quaintness 
of  Jefferson  to  the  sweetness  of  Warren ;  in  his  wildest  burlesque  he 


STENTERELLO. 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  103 

was  so  true  to  nature  in  every  touch  and  accent,  that  I  wanted  to  sit 
there  and  spend  my  life  in  the  innocent  folly  of  enjoying  him.  Ap- 
parently, the  rest  of  the  audience  desired  the  same.  Nowhere,  even 
in  Italy,  was  the  sense  of  rest  from  all  the  hurrying,  great  weary 
world  outside  so  full  as  in  certain  moments  of  this  Stenterello's  ab- 
surdity at  the  Teatro  Eossini,  which  was  not  otherwise  a  comfortable 
place.  It  was  more  like  a  section  of  a  tunnel  than  like  a  theatre, 
being  a  rounded  oblong,  with  the  usual  tiers  of  boxes,  and  the  pit 
where  there  were  seats  in  front,  and  two  thirds  of  the  space  left  free 
for  standing  behind.  Every  day  there  was  a  new  bill,  and  I  remem- 
ber "  Stenterello  White  Slave  in  America  "  and  "  Stenterello  as  Ham- 
let" among  the  attractions  offered.  In  fact,  he  runs  through  an 
indefinite  number  of  dramas,  as  Brighella,  Arlecchino,  Pantalone, 
Florindo,  Eosaura,  and  the  rest,  appear  and  reappear  in  the  comedies 
of  Goldoni  while  he  is  temporizing  with  the  old  ami  media  d'arte, 
where  he  is  at  his  best. 

At  what  I  may  call  the  non-Stenterello  theatres  in  Florence,  they 
were  apt  to  give  versions  of  the  more  heart-breaking,  vow-broken, 
French  melodramas,  though  occasionally  there  was  a  piece  of  Italian 
origin,  generally  Giacosa's.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  there  were 
now  fewer  Italian  plays  given  than  there  were  twenty  years  ago ; 
and  the  opera  season  was  almost  as  short  and  inclement  as  in 
Boston. 

XXXIV. 

I  visited  many  places  of  amusements  more  popular  than  the  the- 
atre, but  1  do  not  know  that  I  can  fitly  offer  them  all  to  the  more 
polite  and  formal  acquaintance  of  my  readers,  whom  I  like  always  to 
figure  as  extremely  well-behaved  and  well-dressed  persons.  Which 
of  these  refined  and  fastidious  ladies  and  gentlemen  shall  I  ask,  for 
example,  to  go  with  me  to  see  a  dying  Zouave  in  wax  in  a  booth 
at  the  Mercato  Vecchio,  where  there  were  other  pathetic  and  mon- 
strous figures  ?  At  the  door  was  a  peasant-like  personage  who 
extolled  himself  from  time  to  time  as  the  inventor  of  a  musical 
'instrument  within,  which  he  said  he  had  exemplarily  spent  his  time 


104 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


in  perfecting,  instead  of  playing  cards  and  mora.  I  followed  him 
inside  with  the  crowd,  chiefly  soldiers,  who  were  in  such  overwhelm- 
ing force  that  I  was  a  little  puzzled  to  make  out  which  corps  and 
regiment  I  belonged  to ;  but  I  shared  the  common  edification  of  the 
performance,  when  our  musical  genius  mounted  a  platform  before  a 
most  intricate  instrument,  which  combined  in  itself,  as  he  boasted, 
the  qualities  of  all  other  kinds  of  instruments.  He  shuffled  off  his 
shoes  and  played  its  pedals  with  his  bare  feet,  while  he  sounded  its 
pipes  with  his  mouth,  pounding  a  drum-attachment  with  one  hand 
and  scraping  a  violin-attachment  with  the  other.  I  do  not  think  the 
instrument  will  ever  come  into  general  use,  and  I  have  my  doubts 
whether  the  inventor  might  not  have  better  spared  a  moment  or  two 
of  his  time  to  mora.     I  enjoyed  more  a  little  vocal  and  acrobatic 

entertainment,  where  again  I  found  my- 
self in  the  midst  of  my  brothers  in  arms. 
Civilians  paid  three  cents  to  come  in,  but 
we  military  only  two ;  and  we  had  the  best 
seats  and  smoked  throughout  the  perform- 
ance. This  consisted  of  the  feats  of  two 
nice,  innocent-looking  boys,  who  came  out 
and  tumbled,  and  of  two  sisters  who  sans  a 
very  long  duet  together,  screeching  the  dia- 
logue with  which  it  was  interspersed  in  the 
ear-piercingest  voices  ;  it  represented  a  lov- 
ers' quarrel,  and  sounded  very  like  some 
which  I  have  heard  on  the  roof  and  the 
back  fences.  But  what  I  admired  about  this  and  other  popular 
shows  was  the  perfect  propriety.  At  the  circus  in  the  Via  Nazionale 
they  had  even  a  clown  in  a  dress-coat. 

Of  course,  the  two  iron  tanks  full  of  young  crocodiles  which  T  saw 
in  a  booth  in  our  piazza  classed  themselves  with  great  moral  shows, 
because  of  their  instructiveness.  The  water  in  which  they  lay  soak- 
ing was  warmed  for  them,  and  the  chill  w^as  taken  off  the  air  by  a 
sheet-iron  stove,  so  that,  upon  the  whole,  these  saurians  had  the 
most  comfortable  quarters  in  the  whole  shivering  city.     Although 


THE    CLOWN. 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  105 

they  had  up  a  sign,  "  Animali  pericolosi  —  non  si  toccano,"  nothing 
was  apparently  further  from  their  thoughts  than  biting;  they  lay 
blinking  in  supreme  content,  and  allowed  a  captain  of  horse  to  poke 
them  with  his  finger  throughout  my  stay,  and  were  no  more  to  be 
feared  than  that  younger  brother  of  theirs  whom  the  showman  went 
about  with  in  his  hand,  lecturing  on  him  ;  he  was  half-hatched  from 
his  native  egg,  and  had  been  arrested  and  neatly  varnished  in  the 
act  for  the  astonishment  of  mankind. 


XXXV. 

We  had  the  luck  to  be  in  Florence  on  the  25th  of  March,  when 
one  of  the  few  surviving  ecclesiastical  shows  peculiar  to  the  city 
takes  place.  On  that  day  a  great  multitude,  chiefly  of  peasants  from 
the  surrounding  country,  assemble  in  front  of  the  Duomo  to  see  the 
explosion  of  the  Car  of  the  Pazzi.  This  car  somehow  celebrates  the 
exploit  of  a  crusading  Pazzi,  who  broke  off  a  piece  of  the  Holy  Sep- 
ulchre and  brought  it  back  to  Florence  with  him ;  I  could  not  learn 
just  how  or  why,  from  the  very  scoffing  and  ironical  little  pamphlet 
which  was  sold  in  the  crowd ;  but  it  is  certain  the  car  is  covered 
with  large  fire-crackers,  and  if  these  explode  successfully,  the  harvest 
for  that  year  will  be  something  remarkable.  The  car  is  stationed 
midway  between  the  Duomo  and  the  Baptistery,  and  the  fire  to  set 
off  the  crackers  is  brought  from  the  high  altar  by  a  pyrotechnic  dove, 
which  flies  along  a  wire  stretched  for  that  purpose.  If  a  mother 
with  a  sick  child  passes  under  the  dove  in  its  flight,  the  child  is  as 
good  as  cured. 

The  crowd  was  vast,  packing  the  piazza  outside  around  the  car 
and  the  cathedral  to  its  walls  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people, 
and  every  age  and  sex.  An  alley  between  the  living  walls  was  kept 
open  under  the  wire,  to  let  the  archbishop,  heading  a  procession  of 
priests,  go  out  to  bless  the  car.  When  this  was  done,  and  he  had 
returned  within,  we  heard  a  faint  pop  at  the  high  altar,  and  then  a 
loud  fizzing  as  the  fiery  dove  came  flying  along  the  wire,  showering 
sparks  on  every  side ;  it  rushed  out  to  the  car,  and  then  fled  back  to 


106  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

the  altar,  amidst  a  most  satisfactory  banging  of  the  fire-crackers.  It 
was  not  a  very  awful  spectacle,  and  I  suspect  that  my  sarcastic 
pamphleteer's  description  was  in  the  mood  of  most  of  the  Florentines 
looking  on,  whatever  the  peasant  thought.  " '  Now,  Nina,'  says  the 
priest  to  the  dove,  '  we  're  almost  ready,  and  look  out  how  you  come 
back,  as  well  as  go  out.  That 's  a  dear !  It 's  for  the  good  of  all, 
and  don't  play  me  a  trick  — you  understand?  Eeady !  Are  you 
ready?  Well,  then,  —  Gloria  in  excelsis  Deo,  —  go,  go,  dear,  and  look 
out  for  your  feathers!  Shhhhh!  pum,  pum!  Hurrah,  little  one! 
Now  for  the  return  !  Here  you  come  !  Shhhhh  !  pum,  pum,  pum  ! 
And  I  don't  care  a  fig  for  the  rest ! '  And  he  goes  on  with  his  mass, 
while  the  crowd  outside  console  themselves  with  the  cracking  and 
popping.  Then  those  inside  the  church  join  those  without,  and 
follow  the  car  up  to  the  corner  of  the  Pazzi  palace,  where  the  unex- 
ploded  remnants  are  fired  in  honor  of  the  family." 

XXXVI. 

The  civil  rite  now  constitutes  the  only  legal  marriage  in  Italy, 
the  blessing  of  the  church  going  for  nothing  without  it  before  the 
law ;  and  I  had  had  a  curiosity  to  see  the  ceremony  which  one  may 
see  any  day  in  the  office  of  the  syndic.  The  names  of  those  intend- 
ing matrimony  are  posted  for  a  certain  time  on  the  base  of  the  Public 
Palace,  which  gives  everybody  the  opportunity  of  dedicating  sonnets 
to  them.  The  pay  of  a  sonnet  is  one  franc,  so  that  the  poorest  couple 
can  afford  one ;  and  I  suppose  the  happy  pair  whom  I  saw  waiting 
in  the  syndic's  anteroom  had  provided  themselves  with  one  of  these 
simple  luxuries.  They  were  sufficiently  commonish,  kindly  faced 
young  people,  and  they  and  their  friends  wore,  with  their  best 
clothes,  an  air  of  natural  excitement.  A  bell  sounded,  and  we  followed 
the  group  into  a  large  handsome  saloon  hung  with  red  silk  and  old 
tapestries,  where  the  bride  and  groom  sat  down  in  chairs  placed  for 
them  at  the  rail  before  the  syndic's  desk,  with  their  two  witnesses  at 
their  left.  A  clerk  recorded  the  names  and  residences  of  all  four ; 
and  then  the  usher  summoned  the  syndic,  who  entered,  a  large,  stout 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  107 

old  gentleman,  with  a  tricolor  sash  accenting  his  fat  middle  —  waist 
he  had  none.  Everybody  rose,  and  he  asked  the  bride  and  groom 
severally  if  they  would  help  each  other  through  life  and  be  kind  and 
faithful;  then  in  a  long,  mechanical  formula,  which  I  could  not  hear, 
he  dismissed  them.  They  signed  a  register,  and  the  affair  was  all 
over  for  us,  and  just  begun  for  them,  poor  things.  The  bride  seemed 
a  little  moved  when  we  returned  to  the  anteroom ;  she  borrowed  her 
husband's  handkerchief,  lightly  blew  her  nose  with  it,  and  tucked  it 
back  in  his  breast-pocket. 

XXXVII. 

In  pursuance  of  an  intention  of  studying  Florence  more  seriously 
than  anything  here  represents,  I  assisted  one  morning  at  a  session  of 
the  police  court,  which  I  was  willing  to  compare  with  the  like  tribu- 
nal at  home.  I  found  myself  in  much  the  same  sort  of  crowd  as 
frequents  the  police  court  here  ;  but  upon  the  whole  the  Florentine 
audience,  though  shabby,  was  not  so  truculent-looking  nor  so  dirty 
as  the  Boston  one ;  and  my  respectability  was  consoled  when  I  found 
myself  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  an  dbbate  in  it.  The  thing  that 
chiefly  struck  me  in  the  court  itself  was  the  abundance  of  form  and 
"  presence,"  as  compared  with  ours.  Instead  of  our  clerk  standing 
up  in  his  sack-coat,  the  court  was  opened  by  a  crier  in  a  black  gown 
with  a  white  shoulder-knot,  and  order  was  kept  by  others  as  cere- 
moniously apparelled,  instead  of  two  fat,  cravatless  officers  in  blue 
flannel  jackets  and  Japanese  fans.  The  judges,  who  were  three,  sat 
on  a  dais  under  a  bust  of  King  Umberto,  before  desks  equipped  with 
inkstands  and  sand-boxes  exactly  like  those  in  the  theatre.  Like 
the  ushers,  they  wore  black  gowns  and  white  shoulder-knots,  and 
had  on  visorless  caps  bound  with  silver  braid ;  the  lawyers  also  were 
in  gowns.  The  business  with  which  the  court  opened  seemed  to  be 
some  civil  question,  and  I  waited  for  no  other.  The  judges  exam- 
ined the  witnesses,  and  were  very  keen  and  quick  with  them,  but 
not  severe;  and  what  I  admired  in  all  was  the  good  manner,  —  self- 
' respectful,  unabashed  ;   nobody  seemed  browbeaten  or  afraid.     One 


108  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

of  the  witnesses  was  one  whom  people  near  me  called  a  gobbino 
(hunchbackling),  and  whose  deformity  was  so  grotesque  that  I  am 
afraid  a  crowd  of  our  people  would  have  laughed  at  him,  but  no  one 
smiled  there.  He  bore  himself  with  dignity,  answering  to  the  beau- 
tiful Florentine  name  of  Vanuccio  Vanucci ;  the  judges  first  addressed 
him  as  voi  (you),  but  slipped  insensibly  into  the  more  respectful  lei 
(lordship)  before  they  were  done  with  him.  I  was  too  far  off  from 
them  to  make  out  what  it  was  all  about. 


XXXVIII. 

I  believe  there  are  not  many  crimes  of  violence  in  Florence ;  the 
people  are  not  brutal,  except  to  the  dumb  brutes,  and  there  is  prob- 
ably more  cutting  and  stabbing  in  Boston ;  as  for  shooting,  it  is 
almost  unheard  of.  A  society  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to 
animals  has  been  established  by  some  humane  English  ladies,  which 
directs  its  efforts  wisely  to  awakening  sympathy  for  them  in  the 
children.  They  are  taught  kindness  to  cats  and  dogs,  and  it  is 
hoped  that  when  they  grow  up  they  will  even  be  kind  to  horses. 
These  poor  creatures,  which  have  been  shut  out  of  the  pale  of  human 
sympathy  in  Italy  by  their  failure  to  embrace  the  Christian  doctrine 
("Non  sono  Cristiani  /"),  are  very  harshly  treated  by  the  Florentines, 
I  was  told;  though  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  never  saw  an  Italian 
beating  a  horse.  The  horses  look  wretchedly  underfed  and  over- 
worked, and  doubtless  they  suffer  from  the  hard,  smooth  pavements 
of  the  city,  which  are  so  delightful  to  drive  on ;  but  as  for  the  savage 
scourgings,  the  kicking  with  heavy  boots,  the  striking  over  the  head 
with  the  butts  of  whips,  I  take  leave  to  doubt  if  it  is  at  all  worse 
with  the  Italians  than  with  us,  though  it  is  so  bad  with  us  that  the 
sooner  the  Italians  can  be  reformed  the  better. 

If  they  are  not  very  good  to  animals,  I  saw  how  kind  they  could 
be  to  the  helpless  and  hapless  of  our  own  species,  in  a  visit  which  I 
paid  one  morning  to  the  Pia  Casa  di  Eicovero  in  Florence.  This 
refuge  for  pauperism  was  established  by  the  first  Napoleon,  and  is 
formed  of  two  old  convents,  which  he  suppressed  and  joined  together 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  109 

for  the  purpose.  It  has  now  nearly  eight  hundred  inmates,  men, 
women,  and  children ;  and  any  one  found  begging  in  the  streets  is 
sent  there.  The  whole  is  under  police  government,  and  an  officer 
was  detailed  to  show  me  about  the  airy  wards  and  sunny  courts,  and 
the  clean,  wholesome  dormitories.  The  cleanliness  of  the  place,  in 
fact,  is  its  most  striking  characteristic,  and  is  promoted  in  the  persons 
of  the  inmates  by  baths,  perfunctory  or  voluntary,  every  week.  The 
kitchen,  with  its  shining  coppers,  was  deliciously  fragrant  with  the 
lunch  preparing,  as  I  passed  through  it:  a  mush  of  Indian  meal 
boiled  in  a  substantial  meat-broth.  This  was  served  with  an  abun- 
dance of  bread  and  half  a  gill  of  wine  in  pleasant  refectories ;  some 
very  old  incapables  and  incurables  were  eating  it  in  bed.  The  aged 
leisure  gregariously  gossiping  in  the  wards,  or  blinking  vacantly  in 
the  sunshine  of  the  courts,  was  an  enviable  spectacle ;  and  I  should 
have  liked  to  know  what  these  old  fellows  had  to  complain  of ;  for, 
of  course,  they  were  discontented.  The  younger  inmates  were  all 
at  work ;  there  was  an  admirably  appointed  shop  where  they  were 
artistically  instructed  in  wood-carving  and  fine  cabinet-work ;  and 
there  were  whole  rooms  full  of  little  girls  knitting,  and  of  big  girls 
weaving :  all  the  clothes  worn  there  are  woven  there.  I  do  not 
know  why  the  sight  of  a  very  old  tailor  in  spectacles,  cutting  out  a 
dozen  suits  of  clothes  at  a  time,  from  as  many  thicknesses  of  cloth, 
should  have  been  so  fascinating.  Perhaps  in  his  presence  I  was 
hovering  upon  the  secret  of  the  conjectured  grief  of  that  aged  leisure : 
its  clothes  were  all  cut  of  one  size  and  pattern ! 

XXXIX. 

I  have  spoken  already  of  the  excellent  public  schools  of  Florence, 
which  I  heard  extolled  again  and  again  as  the  best  in  Italy ;  and  I 
was  very  glad  of  the  kindness  of  certain  friends,  which  enabled  me 
to  visit  them  nearly  all.  The  first  which  I  saw  was  in  that  famous 
old  Via  de'  Bardi  where  Tiomola  lived,  and  which  was  inspired  by 
a  charity  as  large-minded  as  her  own.  Tt  is  for  the  education  of 
'young  girls  in  book-keeping  and  those  departments  of  commerce  in 


110 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


which  they  can  be  useful  to  themselves  and  others,  and  has  a  subsidy 
from  the  state  of  two-fifths  of  its  expenses ;  the  girls  pay  each  ten 
francs  a  year  for  their  tuition,  and  the  rest  comes  from  private 
sources.  The  person  who  had  done  most  to  establish  it  was  the 
lady  in  whose  charge  I  found  it,  and  who  was  giving  her  time  to 
it  for  nothing;   she  was  the  wife  of  a  professor  in  the  School  of 


P^WfW^p-*;' 


9a  *W      vna-a— r'"! 


\« 


ON  THE  ARNO. — REAR  OF  VIA  BE  BARDI. 


Superior  Studies  (as  the  University  of  Florence  modestly  calls  itself), 
and  I  hope  T  may  be  forgiven,  for  the  sake  of  the  completer  idea  of 
the  fact  which  I  wish  to  present,  if  I  trench  so  far  as  to  add  that  she 
found  her  devotion  to  it  consistent  with  all  her  domestic  duties  and 
social  pleasures:  she  had  thoroughly  philosophized  it,  and  enjoyed 
it  practically  as  well  as  aesthetically.     The  school  occupies  three 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  Ill 

rooms  on  the  ground  floor  of  an  old  palace,  whose  rear  windows 
look  upon  the  Arno;  and  in  these  rooms  are  taught  successively 
writing  and  mathematics,  the  principles  of  book-keeping,  and  prac- 
tical book-keeping,  with  English  and  French  throughout  the  three 
years'  course.  The  teacher  of  penmanship  was  a  professor  in  the 
Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  and  taught  it  in  its  principles ;  in  this  case, 
as  in  most  others,  the  instruction  is  without  text-books,  and  seemed 
to  me  more  direct  and  sympathetic  than  ours :  the  pupil  felt  the 
personal  quality  of  the  teacher.  There  are  fifty  girls  in  the  school, 
mostly  from  shop-keeping  families,  and  of  all  ages  from  twelve  to 
seventeen,  and  although  it  had  been  established  only  a  short  time, 
several  of  them  had  already  found  places.  They  were  prettily  and 
tidily  dressed,  and  looked  interested  and  happy.  They  rose  when 
we  entered  a  room,  and  remained  standing  till  we  left  it ;  and  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  their  mental  training  was  based  upon  a  habit  of  self- 
respectful  subordination,  which  would  be  quite  as  useful  hereafter. 
Some  little  infractions  of  discipline  —  I  have  forgotten  what  —  were 

promptly  rebuked  by  Signora  G ,  and  her  rebuke  was  received  in 

the  best  spirit.  She  said  she  had  no  trouble  with  her  girls,  and  she 
was  experiencing  now,  at  the  end  of  the  first  year,  the  satisfaction  of 
success  in  her  experiment :  hers  I  call  it,  because,  though  there  is  a 
similar  school  in  Naples,  she  was  the  foundress  of  this  in  Florence. 

There  is  now  in  Italy  much  inquiry  as  to  what  the  Italians  can 
best  do  to  resume  their  place  in  the  business  of  the  world ;  and  in 
giving  me  a  letter  to  the  director  of  the  Popular  Schools  in  Florence, 

Signora  G told  me  something  of  what  certain  good  heads  and 

hearts  there  had  been  thinking  and  doing.  It  appeared  to  these 
that  Italy,  with  her  lack  of  natural  resources,  could  never  compete 
with  the  great  industrial  nations  in  manufacturing,  but  they  believed 
that  she  might  still  excel  in  the  mechanical  arts  which  are  nearest 
allied  to  the  fine  arts,  if  an  intelligent  interest  in  them  could  be 
reawakened  in  her  people,  and  they  could  be  enlightened  and  edu- 
cated to  the  appreciation  of  skill  and  beauty  in  these.  To  this  end 
a  number  of  Florentine  gentlemen  united  to  establish  the  Popular 
'Schools,  where  instruction  is  given  free  every  Sunday  to  any  man  or 


112  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

boy  of  any  age  who  chooses  to  wash  his  hands  and  face  and  come. 
Each  of  these  gentlemen  pledges  himself  to  teach  personally  in  the 
schools,  or  to  pay  for  a  teacher  in  his  place;  there  is  no  aid  from 
the  state ;  all  is  the  work  of  private  beneficence,  and  no  one  receives 
pay  for  service  in  the  schools  except  the  porter. 

I  found  them  in  a  vast  old  palace  in  the  Via  Parione,  and  the 
director  kindly  showed  me  through  every  department.  Instruction 
is  given  in  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  and  the  other  simpler 
branches ;  but  the  final  purpose  of  the  schools  is  to  train  the  facul- 
ties for  the  practice  of  the  decorative  arts,  and  any  art  in  which 
disciplined  and  nimble  wits  are  useful.  When  a  pupil  enters,  his 
name  is  registered,  and  his  history  in  the  school  is  carefully  recorded 
up  to  the  time  he  leaves  it.  It  was  most  interesting  to  pass  from 
one  room  to  another,  and  witness  the  operation  of  the  admirable 
ideas  which  animated  the  whole.  Of  course,  the  younger  pupils 
were  the  quicker ;  but  the  director  called  them  up  without  regard 
to  age  or  standing,  and  let  me  hear  them  answer  their  teachers' 
questions,  merely  saying,  "  This  one  has  been  with  us  six  weeks ; 
this  one,  two;  this  one,  three  years,"  etc.  They  were  mostly  poor 
fellows  out  of  the  streets,  but  often  they  were  peasants  who  walked 
five  or  six  miles  to  and  fro  to  profit  by  the  chance  offered  them  for 
a  little  life  and  light.  Sometimes  they  were  not  too  clean,  and  the 
smell  in  the  rooms  must  have  been  trying  to  the  teachers ;  but  they 
were  decently  clad,  attentive,  and  well-behaved.  One  of  the  teachers 
had  come  up  through  the  schools,  with  no  other  training,  and  was 
very  efficient.  There  was  a  gymnasium,  and  the  pupils  were  taught 
the  principles  of  hygiene;  there  was  abundant  scientific  apparatus, 
and  a  free  circulating  library.  There  is  no  religious  instruction,  but 
in  one  of  the  rooms  a  professor  from  the  Studii  Superiori  was  lectur- 
ing on  the  Duties  of  a  Citizen ;  I  heard  him  talk  to  the  boys  about 
theft ;  he  was  very  explicit  with  them,  but  just  and  kindly ;  from 
time  to  time  he  put  a  question  to  test  their  intelligence  and  atten- 
tion. An  admirable  spirit  of  democracy  —  that  is  to  say,  of  humanity 
and  good  sense  —  seemed  to  prevail  throughout.  The  director  made 
one  little  fellow  read  to  me.     Then,  "  What  is  your  business  ? "  he 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  113 

asked.  "  Cleaning  out  eave-troughs."  Some  of  the  rest  tittered. 
"  Why  laugh  ? "  demanded  the  director  sternly.  "  It  is  an  occupa- 
tion, like  another." 

There  are  no  punishments ;  for  gross  misbehavior  the  offender  is 
expelled.  On  the  other  hand,  the  pupils  are  given  premiums  for 
excellence,  and  are  encouraged  to  put  them  into  the  savings-bank. 
The  whole  course  is  for  four  years ;  but  in  the  last  year's  room  few 
remained.  Of  these  was  a  certain  rosso  (red-head),  whom  the  director 
called  up.  Afterwards  he  told  me  that  this  rosso  had  a  wild  roman- 
tic passion  for  America,  whither  he  supremely  desired  to  go,  and  that 
it  would  be  an  inexpressible  pleasure  for  him  to  have  seen  me.  I 
came  away  regretting  that  he  could  form  so  little  idea  from  my  looks 
of  what  America  was  really  like. 

In  an  old  Medici  palace,  which  was  also  once  a  convent,  at  the 
Oltrarno  end  of  the  Trinita  bridge,  is  the  National  Female  Normal 
School,  one  of  two  in  the  kingdom,  the  other  being  at  Naples.  On 
the  day  of  my  visit,  the  older  girls  had  just  returned  from  the  funeral 
of  one  of  their  professors,  —  a  priest  of  the  neighboring  parish  of 
S.  Spirito.  It  was  at  noon,  and,  in  the  natural  reaction,  they  were 
chatting  gayly ;  and  as  they  ranged  up  and  down  stairs  and  through 
the  long  sunny  corridors,  pairing  off,  and  whispering  and  laughing 
over  their  luncheon,  they  were  very  much  like  school-girls  at  home. 
The  porter  sent  me  upstairs  through  their  formidable  ranks  to  the 
room  of  the  professor  to  whom  I  was  accredited,  and  he  kindly 
showed  me  through  his  department.  It  was  scientific,  and  to  my 
ignorance,  at  least,  was  thoroughly  equipped  for  its  work  with  the 
usual  apparatus ;  but  at  that  moment  the  light,  clean,  airy  rooms 
were  empty  of  students ;  and  he  presently  gave  me  in  charge  of  the 
directress,  Signora  Billi,  who  kindly  led  the  way  through  the  whole 
establishment.  Some  Boston  lady,  whom  she  had  met  in  our  educa- 
tional exhibit  at  the  Exposition  in  Paris,  had  made  interest  with  her 
for  all  future  Americans  by  giving  her  a  complete  set  of  our  public- 
school  text-books,  and  she  showed  me  with  great  satisfaction,  in  one  of 
the  rooms,  a  set  of  American  school  furniture,  desks,  and  seats.  But 
♦there  the  Americanism  of  the  Normal  School  ended.    The  instruction 


114  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

was  oral,  the  text-books  few  or  none;  but  every  student  had  her 
note-book  in  which  she  set  down  the  facts  and  principles  imparted. 
I  do  not  know  what  the  comparative  advantages  of  the  different 
systems  are ;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  there  must  be  more  life  and 
sympathy  in  the  Italian. 

The  pupils,  who  are  of  all  ages  from  six  years  to  twenty,  are  five 
hundred  in  number,  and  are  nearly  all  from  the  middle  class,  though 
some  are  from  the  classes  above  and  below  that.  They  come  there 
to  be  fitted  for  teaching,  and  are  glad  to  get  the  places  which  the 
state,  which  educates  them  for  nothing,  pays  scantily  enough,  —  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year  at  most.  They  were  all  neatly 
dressed,  and  well-mannered,  of  course,  from  the  oldest  to  the  young- 
est ;  the  discipline  is  perfect,  and  the  relation  of  teachers  and  pupils, 
I  understood,  most  affectionate.  Perhaps  after  saying  this  I  ought 
to  add  that  the  teachers  are  all  ladies,  and  young  ladies.  One  of 
these  was  vexed  that  I  should  see  her  girls  with  their  hats  and  sacks 
on :  but  they  were  little  ones  and  just  going  home ;  the  little  ones 
were  allowed  to  go  home  at  one  o'clock,  while  the  others  remained 
from  nine  till  two.  In  the  room  of  the  youngest  were  two  small 
Scotchwomen  who  had  quite  forgotten  their  parents'  dialect ;  but  in 
their  blue  eyes  and  auburn  hair,  in  everything  but  their  speech,  they 
were  utterly  alien  to  the  dusky  bloom  and  gleaming  black  of  the 
Italians  about  them.  The  girls  were  nearly  all  of  the  dark  type, 
though  there  was  here  and  there  one  of  those  opaque  Southern 
blondes  one  finds  in  Italy.  Fair  or  dark,  however,  they  all  had 
looks  of  bright  intelligence,  though  I  should  say  that  in  beauty  they 
were  below  the  American  average.  All  their  surroundings  here  were 
wholesome  and  good,  and  the  place  was  thoroughly  comfortable,  as 
the  Italians  understand  comfort.     They  have  no  fire  in  the  coldest 

weather,  though   at  Signora  G- 's  commercial  school  they  had 

stoves,  to  be  used  in  extreme  cases ;  but  on  the  other  hand  they 
had  plenty  of  light  and  sunny  air,  and  all  the  brick  floors  and 
whitewashed  walls  were  exquisitely  clean.  I  should  not  Lave  been 
much  the  wiser  for  seeing  them  at  their  lessons,  and  I  shall  always 
be  glad  of  that  impression  of  hopeful,  cheerful  young  life  which  the 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  115 

sight  of  their  leisure  gave  me,  as  they  wandered  happy  and  free 
through  the  corridors  where  the  nuns  used  to  pace  with  downcast 
eyes  and  folded  palms ;  and  I  came  away  very  well  satisfied  with 
my  century. 

My  content  was  in  nowise  impaired  by  the  visit  which  I  made  to 
the  girls'  public  school  in  Via  Montebello.  It  corresponded,  I  sup- 
pose, to  one  of  our  primary  schools ;  and  here,  as  elsewhere,  the 
teaching  was  by  dictation  ;  the  children  had  readers,  but  no  other 
text-books ;  these  were  in  the  hands  of  the  teachers  alone.  Again 
everything  was  very  clean,  very  orderly,  very  humane  and  kindly. 
The  little  ones  in  the  various  rooms,  called  up  at  random,  were 
wonderfully  proficient  in  reading,  mathematics,  grammar,  and  geog- 
raphy ;  one  small  person  showed  an  intimacy  with  the  map  of 
Europe  which  was  nothing  less  than  dismaying. 

I  did  not  succeed  in  getting  to  the  boys'  schools,  but  I  was  told 
that  they  were  practically  the  same  as  this ;  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  if  I  must  miss  either,  it  was  better  to  see  the  future  mothers  of 
Italy  at  their  books.  Here  alone  was  there  any  hint  of  the  church 
in  the  school :  it  was  a  Friday,  and  the  priest  was  coming  to  teach 
the  future  mothers  their  catechism. 


XL. 

Few  of  my  readers,  I  hope,  have  failed  to  feel  the  likeness  of  these 
broken  and  ineffectual  sketches  to  the  pictures  in  stone  which  glare 
at  you  from  the  windows  of  the  mosaicists  on  the  Lungarno  and  in 
the  Via  Borgognissanti ;  the  wonder  of  them  is  greater  than  the 
pleasure.  I  have  myself  had  the  fancy,  in  my  work,  of  a  number 
of  small  views  and  figures  of  mosaic,  set  in  a  slab  of  black  marble 
for  a  table-top,  or  —  if  the  reader  does  not  like  me  to  be  so  ambi- 
tious—  a  paper-weight;  and  now  I  am  tempted  to  form  a  border 
to  this  capo  d'opera,  bizarre  and  irregular,  such  as  I  have  some- 
times seen  composed  of  the  bits  of  pietra  viva  left  over  from  a 
larger  work.  They  are  mere  fragments  of  color,  scraps  and  shreds 
'of  Florence,  which  I  find  still  gleaming  more  or  less  dimly  in  my 


116 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


note-books,  and  I  have  no  notion  of  making  any  ordered  arrangement 
of  them. 

But  I  am  sure  that  if  I  shall  but  speak  of  how  the  sunshine  lies 
in  the  Piazza  of  the  Annunziata  at  noonday,  falling  on  the  feebly 
dribbling  grotesques  of  the  fountain  there,  and  on  John  of  Bologna's 
equestrian  grand  duke,  and  on  that  dear  and  ever  lovely  band  of 
babes  by  Luca  della  liobbia  in  the  facade  of  the  Hospital  of  the 
Innocents,  I  shall  do  enough  to  bring  it  all  back  to  him  who  has 
once  seen  it,  and  to  justify  myself  at  least  in  his  eyes. 

The  beautiful  pulpit  of  Donatello  in  San  Lorenzo  I  find  associated 

in  sensation  with  the  effect,  from  the  old  cloistered  court  of  that 

church,  of   Brunelleschi's  dome  and   Giotto's 

tower  showing  in  the  pale  evening 


l°pM 


FLORENTINE    HOUSETOPS. 


air  above  all  the  picturesque  roofs  between 
San  Lorenzo  and  the  cathedral ;  and  not  remote  from  these  is  my 
pleasure  in  the  rich  vulgarity  and  affluent  bad  taste  of  the  modern 
decoration  of  the  Caffh  del  Parlamcnto,  in  which  one  takes  one's  ice 
under  the  chins  of  all  these  pretty  girls,  popping  their  little  sculp- 
tured heads  out  of  the  lunettes  below  the  frieze,  with  the  hats  and 
bonnets  of  fifteen  years  ago  on  them. 

Do  you  remember,  beloved  brethren  and  sisters  of  Florentine  so- 
journ, the  little  windows  beside  the  grand  portals  of  the  palaces,  the 
cantine,  where  you  could  buy  a  graceful  wicker-covered  flask  of  the 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  117 

prince's  or  marquis's  wine  ?  "  Open  from  ten  till  four  —  till  one  on 
holidays,"  they  were  lettered ;  and  in  the  Borgo  degli  Albizzi  I  saw 
the  Cantina  Filicaja,  though  it  had  no  longer  the  old  sigh  for  Italy 
upon  its  lips  :  — 

"  Deh,  fossi  tu  men  bella  o  alraen  piii  forte !  " 

I  am  far  from  disdaining  the  memory  of  my  horse-car  tour  of  the 
city,  on  the  track  which  followed  so  nearly  the  line  of  the  old  city 
wall  that  it  showed  me  most  of  the  gates  still  left  standing,  and  the 
last  grand  duke's  arch  of  triumph,  very  brave  in  the  sunset  light. 
The  tramways  make  all  the  long  distances  in  the  Florentine  outskirts 
and  suburbs,  and  the  cars  never  come  when  you  want  them,  just  as 
with  us,  and  are  always  as  crowded. 

I  had  a  great  deal  of  comfort  in  two  old  fellows,  unoccupied  custo- 
dians, in  the  convent  of  San  Marco,  who,  while  we  were  all  fidgeting 
about,  doing  our  Fra  Angelico  or  our  Savonarola,  sat  motionless  in  a 
patch  of  sunshine  and  tranquilly  gossipped  together  in  senile  falsetto. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  never  saw  truer  grief,  or  more  of  it,  in  a  custo- 
dian than  the  polite  soul  displayed  in  the  Bargello  on  whom  we  came 
so  near  the  hour  of  closing  one  day  that  he  could  show  us  almost 
nothing.  I  could  see  that  it  wrung  his  heart  that  we  should  have 
paid  our  francs  to  come  in  then,  when  the  Dante  in  the  peaceful 
Giotto  fresco  was  only  a  pensive  blur  to  the  eye,  and  the  hideous 
realizations  of  the  great  Pest  in  wax  were  mere  indistinguishable 
nightmares.  We  tried  to  console  him  by  assuring  him  of  our  delight 
in  Delia  Tiobbia's  singing  boys  in  another  room,  and  of  the  compen- 
sation we  had  in  getting  away  from  the  Twelve  (Useless)  Labors  of 
Hercules  by  Eossi,  and  two  or  three  particularly  unpleasant  muscular 
Abstractions  of  Michael  Angelo.  It  was  in  fact  too  dark  to  see  much 
of  the  museum,  and  we  had  to  come  again  for  that ;  but  no  hour 
could  have  been  better  than  that  of  the  falling  dusk  for  the  old 
court,  with  its  beautiful  staircase,  where  so  many  hearts  had  broken 
in  the  anguish  of  death,  and  so  many  bloody  heads  rolled  upon  the 
insensible  stones  since  the  first  Podesta  of  Florence  had  made  the 
Bargello  his  home,  till  the  last  Medici  had  made  it  his  prison. 


118  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

Of  statues  and  of  pictures  I  have  spoken  very  little,  because  it 
seems  to  me  that  others  have  spoken  more  than  enough.  Yet  I  have 
hinted  that  I  did  my  share  both  of  suffering  and  enjoying  in  galleries 
and  churches,  and  I  have  here  and  there  still  lurking  in  my  con- 
sciousness a  color,  a  look,  a  light,  a  line  from  some  masterpiece  of 
Botticelli,  of  Donatello,  of  Mino  da  Fiesole,  which  I  would  fain  hope 
will  be  a  consolation  forever,  but  which  I  will  not  vainly  attempt  to 
impart  to  others.  I  will  rather  beg  the  reader  when  he  goes  to  Flor- 
ence, to  go  for  my  sake,  as  well  as  his  own,  to  the  Academy  and  look 
at  the  Spring  of  Botticelli  as  long  and  often  as  he  can  keep  away 
from  the  tender  and  dignified  and  exquisitely  refined  Mino  da  Fie- 
sole sculptures  in  the  Badia,  or  wherever  else  he  may  find  them. 
These  works  he  may  enjoy  without  technique,  and  simply  upon  con- 
dition of  his  being  a  tolerably  genuine  human  creature.  There  is 
something  also  very  sweet  and  winningly  simple  in  the  archaic  reliefs 
in  the  base  of  Giotto's  tower ;  and  the  lessee  of  the  Teatro  Umberto 
in  showing  me  behind  the  scenes  of  his  theatre  had  a  politeness  that 
was  delicious,  and  comparable  to  nothing  less  than  the  finest  works 
of  art. 

In  quality  of  courtesy  the  Italians  are  still  easily  first  of  all 
men,  as  they  are  in  most  other  things  when  they  will,  though  I  am 
not  sure  that  the  old  gentleman  who  is  known  in  Florence  as  The 
American,  par  excellence,  is  not  perhaps  pre-eminent  in  the  art  of 
driving  a  circus-chariot.  This  compatriot  has  been  one  of  the  most 
striking  and  characteristic  features  of  the  place  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  with  his  team  of  sixteen  or  twenty  horses  guided  through 
the  Florentine  streets  by  the  reins  gathered  into  his  hands.  From 
time  to  time  his  horses  have  run  away  and  smashed  his  carriage,  or 
at  least  pulled  him  from  his  seat,  so  that  now  he  has  himself  strapped 
to  the  box,  and  four  grooms  sit  with  folded  arms  on  the  seats  behind 
him,  ready  to  jump  down  and  fly  at  the  horses'  heads.  As  the 
strange  figure,  drawn  at  a  slow  trot,  passes  along,  with  stiffly  waxed 
mustache  and  impassive  face,  it  looks  rather  like  a  mechanical  con- 
trivance in  the  human  form;  and  you  are  yielding  to  this  fancy, 
when,  approaching  a  corner,  it  breaks  into  a  long  cry,  astonishingly 


A   FLORENTINE  MOSAIC.  119 

harsh  and  fierce,  to  warn  people  in  the  next  street  of  its  approach. 
It  is  a  curious  sight,  and  seems  to  belong  to  the  time  when  rich  and 
privileged  people  used  their  pleasure  to  be  eccentric,  and  the  "  mad- 
ness "  of  Englishmen  especially  was  the  amazement  and  delight  of 
the  Continent.  It  is  in  character  with  this  that  the  poor  old  gentle- 
man should  bear  one  of  our  own  briefly  historical  names,  and  that  he 
should  illustrate  in  the  indulgence  of  his  caprice  the  fact  that  no 
great  length  of  time  is  required  to  arrive  at  all  that  centuries  can  do 
for  a  noble  family.  I  have  been  sorry  to  observe  a  growing  impa- 
tience with  him  on  the  part  of  the  Florentine  journalists.  Upon 
the  occasion  of  his  last  accident  they  asked  if  it  was  not  time  his 
progresses  should  be  forbidden.  Next  to  tearing  down  the  Ponte 
Vecchio,  I  can  imagine  nothing  worse. 

Journalism  is  very  active  in  Florence,  and  newspapers  are  sold 
and  read  everywhere ;  they  are  conspicuous  in  the  hands  of  people 
who  are  not  supposed  to  read ;  and  more  than  once  the  cab-driver 
whom  I  called  at  a  street  corner  had  to  fold  up  his  cheap  paper  and 
put  it  away  before  he  could  respond.  They  are  of  a  varying  quality. 
The  "  Nazione,"  which  is  serious  and  political,  is  as  solidly,  if  not  so 
heavily,  written  as  an  English  journal ;  the  "  Fanfulla  della  Dome- 
nica,"  which  is  literary,  contains  careful  and  brilliant  reviews  of  new 
books.  The  cheap  papers  are  apt  to  be  inflammatory  in  politics ;  if 
humorous,  they  are  local  and  somewhat  unintelligible.  The  more 
pretentious  satirical  papers  are  upon  the  model  of  the  French,  —  a 
little  more  political,  but  abounding  mostly  in  jokes  at  the  expense 
of  the  seventh  commandment,  which  the  Latins  find  so  droll.  There 
are  in  all  thirty  periodicals,  monthly,  weekly,  and  daily,  published 
in  Florence,  which  you  are  continually  assured  is  no  longer  the  liter- 
ary centre  of  Italy.  It  is  true  none  of  the  leaders  of  the  new  real- 
istic movement  in  fiction  are  Florentines  by  birth  or  residence ;  the 
chief  Italian  poet,  Carducci,  lives  in  Bologna,  the  famous  traveller 
De  Amicis  lives  in  Turin,  and  most  new  books  are  published  at 
Milan  or  Naples.  But  I  recur  again  to  the  group  of  accomplished 
scholars  who  form  the  intellectual  body  of  the  Studii  Superiori,  or 
University  of  Florence  ;  and  thinking  of  such  an  able  and  delightful 


120  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

historian  as  Villari,  and  such  a  thorough  and  indefatigable  litterateur 
as  Grubernatis,  whom  the  congenial  intellectual  atmosphere  of  Flor- 
ence has  attracted  from  Naples  and  Piedmont,  I  should  not,  if  I  were 
a  Florentine,  yield  the  palm  without  a  struggle. 

One  does  not  turn  one's  face  from  Florence  without  having  paid 
due  honors  in  many  a  regretful,  grateful  look  to  the  noble  and  fa- 
mous river  that  runs  through  her  heart.  You  are  always  coming 
upon  the  Arno,  and  always  seeing  it  in  some  new  phase  or  mood. 
Belted  with  its  many  bridges,  and  margined  with  towers  and  palaces, 
it  is  the  most  beautiful  and  stately  thing  in  the  beautiful  and  stately 
city,  whether  it  is  in  a  dramatic  passion  from  the  recent  rains,  or 
dreamily  raving  of  summer  drouth  over  its  dam,  and  stretching  a  bar 
of  silver  from  shore  to  shore.  The  tawny  splendor  of  its  flood ;  the 
rush  of  its  rapids ;  the  glassy  expanses  in  which  the  skies  mirror 
themselves  by  day,  and  the  lamps  by  night ;  the  sweeping  curve  of 
the  pale  buff  line  of  houses  that  follows  its  course,  —  give  a  fascination 
which  is  not  lost  even  when  the  anxiety  of  a  threatened  inundation 
mingles  witli  it.  The  storms  of  a  single  night,  sending  down  their 
torrents  from  the  hills,  set  it  foaming;  it  rises  momently,  and  noth- 
ing but  the  presence  of  all  the  fire-engine  companies  in  the  city  allays 
public  apprehension.  What  they  are  to  do  to  the  Arno  in  case  it 
overflows  its  banks,  or  whether  they  are  similarly  called  out  in 
summer  when  it  shrinks  to  a  rill  in  its  bed,  and  sends  up  clouds  of 
mosquitoes,  I  do  not  know ;  nor  am  I  quite  comfortable  in  thinking 
the  city  is  drained  into  it.  From  the  vile  old  rancid  stenches  which 
steam  up  from  the  crevices  in  the  pavement  everywhere,  one  would 
think  the  city  was  not  drained  at  all ;  but  this  would  be  as  great  a 
mistake  as  to  think  New  York  is  not  cleaned,  merely  because  it 
looks  filthy. 

Before  we  left  Florence  we  saw  the  winter  drowse  broken  in  the 
drives  and  alleys  of  the  Ca seine ;  we  saw  the  grass,  green  from  No- 
vember till  April,  snowed  with  daisies,  and  the  floors  of  the  dusky 
little  dingles  empurpled  with  violets.  The  nightingales  sang  from 
the  poplar  tops  in  the  dull  rich  warmth;  the  carriages  blossomed  with 
lovely  hats  and  parasols  ;  handsome  cavaliers  and  slim-waisted  ladies 


A    FLORENTINE  MOSAIC. 


121 


dashed  by  on  blooded  horses  (I  will  say  blooded  for  the  effect),  and 
a  fat  flower-girl  urged  her  wares  upon  every  one  she  could  overtake. 
It  was  enough  to  suggest  what  the  Cascine  could  be  to  Florence  in 
the  summer,  and  enough  to  make  one  regret  the  winter,  when  one 
could  have  it  nearly  all  to  one's  self. 

You  can  never  see  the  Boboli  Garden  with  the  same  sense  of 
ownership,  for  it  distinctly  belongs  to  the  king's  palace,  and  the 

public  has  the  range  of  it  only  on 
Sundays,  when  the  people  throng  it. 


FOUNTAIN    IN    THE    BOBOLI    GARDEN. 


But,  unless  one  is  very  greedy,  it  is  none  the  less  a  pleasure  for  that, 
with  its  charming,  silly  grottos,  its  masses  of  ivy-covered  wall,  its 


122  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

curtains  of  laurel-hedge,  its  black  spires  of  cypress  and  domes  of 
pine,  its  weather-beaten  marbles,  its  sad,  unkempt  lawns,  its  gro- 
tesque, overgrown  fountain,  with  those  sea-horses  so  much  too  big 
for  its  lake,  its  wandering  alleys  and  moss-grown  seats  abounding  in 
talking  age  and  whispering  lovers.  It  has  a  tangled  vastness  in 
which  an  American  might  almost  lose  his  self-consciousness;  and  the 
view  of  Florence  from  one  of  its  heights  is  incomparably  enchanting, 
—  like  every  other  view  of  Florence. 

Like  that,  for  instance,  which  one  has  from  the  tower  of  the 
Palazzo  Vecchio,  looking  down  on  the  picturesque  surfaces  of  the 
city  tiles,  the  silver  breadth  and  stretch  of  the  Arno,  the  olive  and 
vine  clad  hills,  the  vast  champaign  widening  in  the  distance  till  the 
misty  tops  of  the  mountains  softly  close  it  in  at  last.  Here,  as  from 
San  Miniato,  the  domed  and  galleried  bulk  of  the  cathedral  showed 
prodigiously  first  of  all  things ;  then  the  eye  rested  again  and  again 
upon  the  lowered  crests  of  the  mediaeval  towers,  monumentally 
abounding  among  the  modern  roofs  that  swelled  above  their  broken 
pride.  The  Florence  that  I  saw  was  indeed  no  longer  the  Florence 
of  the  sentimentalist's  feeble  desire,  or  the  romancer's  dream,  but 
something  vastly  better :  contemporary,  real,  busy  in  its  fashion,  and 
wholesomely  and  every-daily  beautiful.  And  my  heart  still  warms 
to  the  famous  town,  not  because  of  that  past  which,  however  heroic 
and  aspiring,  was  so  wrong-headed  and  bloody  and  pitiless,  but 
because  of  the  present,  safe,  free,  kindly,  full  of  possibilities  of  pros- 
perity and  fraternity,  like  that  of  Boston  or  Denver. 

The  weather  had  grown  suddenly  warm  overnight.  I  looked  again 
at  the  distant  mountains,  where  they  smouldered  along  the  horizon  : 
they  were  purple  to  their  tips,  and  no  ghost  of  snow  glimmered 
under  any  fold  of  their  mist.  Our  winter  in  Florence  had  come  to 
an  end. 


PANFORTE   DI  SIENA. 


PAN  FORTE   DI    SIENA. 


i. 


MONTH  out  of  our  winter  at  Florence 
we  gave  to  Siena,  whither  we  went 
early  in  February.  At  that  time  there 
were  no  more  signs  of  spring  in  the 
landscape  than  there  were  in  December, 
except  for  here  and  there  an  almond- 
tree,  which  in  the  pale  pink  of  its 
thronging  blossoms  showed  delicately  as  a  lady's 
complexion  in  the  unfriendly  air.  The  fields  were  in  their  green 
arrest,  but  the  trees  were  bare,  and  the  yellow  river  that  wan- 
dered along  beside  the  railroad  looked  sullen  and  cold  under  the 
dun  sky. 

After  we  left  the  Florentine  plain,  we  ran  between  lines  of  reddish 
hills,  sometimes  thickly  wooded,  sometimes  showing  on  their  crests 
only  the  stems  and  tops  of  scattering  pines  and  poplars,  such  as  the 
Tuscan  painters  were  fond  of  putting  into  their  Judean  backgrounds. 
There  were  few  tokens  of  life  in  the  picture  ;  we  saw  some  old  women 
tending  sheep  and  spinning  with  their  distaffs  in  the  pastures ;  and 
in  the  distance  there  were  villages  cropping  out  of  the  hill-tops  and 
straggling  a  little  way  down  the  slopes.  At  times  we  whirled  by  the 
ruins  of  a  castle,  and  nearer  Siena  we  caught  sight  of  two  or  three 
walled  towers  which  had  come  down  from  the  Middle  Ages  appar- 
ently with  every  turret  in  repair.     Our  course  was  south-westward, 


126  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

but  we  were  continually  mounting  into  the  cold,  thin  air  of  the 
volcanic  hill-country,  at  the  summit  of  which  the  old  Ghibelline  city 
still  sits  capital,  proud  of  her  past,  beautiful  and  noble  even  among 
Italian  towns,  and  wearing  in  her  mural  crown  the  cathedral  second 
in  splendor  and  surprise  only  to  the  jewel-church  in  the  belt  of 
Venice. 

It  is  not  my  habit  to  write  such  fine  rhetoric  as  this,  the  reader 
will  bear  me  witness ;  and  1  suspect  that  it  is  a  prophetic  tint  from 
an  historical  sketch  of  Siena,  to  which,  after  ascertaining  the  mo- 
notony of  the  landscape,  I  could  dedicate  the  leisure  of  our  journey 
with  a  good  conscience.      It  forms  part  of  "  La  Nuova  Guida  di 
Siena,"  and  it  grieves  me  that  the  titlepage  of  my  copy  should  have 
been  lost,  so  that  I   cannot  give  the  name  of  an  author  whose  elo- 
quence I  delight  in.     He  says :  "  Siena  is  lifted  upon  hills  that  rise 
alluring  and  delicious  in  the  centre  of  Tuscany.  ...  Its  climate  is 
soft,  temperate,  and  wholesome.     The  summer  sojourn  is  very  grate- 
ful there  on  account  of  the  elevated  position  and  the  sea  breezes  that, 
with  an  agreeable  constancy,  prevail  in  that  season.  .  .  .  The  pano- 
rama of  the  city  is  something  enchanting.  .  .  .  Every  step  reveals 
startling  changes  of  perspective,  now  lovely,  now  stern,  but  always 
stamped  with  a  physiognomy  of  their  own,  a  characteristic  originality. 
From  all  points  is  seen  the  slim,  proud  tower  of  the  Mangia,  that 
lifts  among  the  clouds  its  battlemented  crest,  its  arrowy  and  exquisite 
shaft.     Viewed  from  the  top  of  this  tower,  Siena  presents  the  figure 
of  a  star,  —  a  figure  formed  by  the  diverse  rays  or  lines  of  its  streets 
traced  upon  the  shoulder  of  the  hills.     The  loveliest  blue  of  the 
most  lovely  Italian  sky  irradiates  our  city  with  the  purest  light,  in 
which  horizons  magnificent  and  vast  open  upon  the  eye.  .  .  .  The 
hills  and  the  plain  are  everywhere  clothed  with  rich  olive  groves, 
festive  orchards,  luxuriant  vineyards,  and  delightful  bosks  of  oak,  of 
chestnut,  and  of   walnut,   which  form  the   umbrageous  breathing- 
places  of  the  enchanting  landscape,  and  render  the  air  pure  and 
oxygenated."     The  native  inhabitants  of  this  paradise  are  entirely 
worthy  of  it.     "No  people  in  Italy,  except,  perhaps,  the  Neapolitans, 
has  the  wicle-awake-mindedness,  the  liveliness  of  character,  the  quick- 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  129 

ness  of  spirit,  the  keen-witted  joyousness  of  the  Sienese.  .  .  .  The 
women  dress  modestly,  but  with  taste.  They  are  gracious,  amiable, 
inclined  to  amusement,  and  affectionate  in  their  families.  In  general 
their  honesty  gives  no  ground  for  jealousy  to  their  husbands ;  they 
are  extremely  refined  in  manner,  and  renowned  for  their  grace  and 
beauty.  The  comeliness  of  their  figures,  the  regularity  of  their  linea- 
ments, as  well  as  their  vivid  coloring,  which  reveals  in  them  an 
enviable  freshness  of  fibre  and  good  blood  purified  by  the  mountain 
air,  justly  awaken  the  admiration  of  strangers.  ...  In  the  women 
and  the  men  alike  exist  the  sweetness  of  pronunciation,  the  elegance 
of  phrase,  and  the  soft  clearness  of  the  true  Tuscan  accent.  .  .  . 
Hospitality  and  the  cordial  reception  of  strangers  are  the  hereditary, 
the  proverbial  virtues  of  the  Sienese.  .  .  .  The  pride  of  the  Sienese 
character  is  equal  to  its  hospitality ;  and  this  does  not  spring  from 
roughness  of  manners  and  customs,  but  is  a  noble  pride,  magnani- 
mous, worthy  of  an  enlightened  people  with  a  self-derived  dignity, 
and  intensely  attached  to  its  own  liberty  and  independence.  The 
Sienese,  whom  one  historian  has  called  the  French  of  Italy,  are 
ardent  spirits,  enthusiastic,  resolute,  energetic,  courageous,  and  prompt 
beyond  any  other  people  to  brandish  their  arms  in  defence  of  their 
country.  They  have  a  martial  nature,  a  fervid  fancy,  a  lively  imag- 
ination ;  they  are  born  artists ;  laborious,  affable,  affectionate,  expan- 
sive ;  they  are  frank  and  loyal  friends,  but  impressionable,  impetuous, 
fiery  to  exaltation.  Quick  to  anger,  they  are  ready  to  forgive,  which 
shows  their  excellence  of  heart.  They  are  polite,  but  unaffected. 
Another  trait  of  their  gay  and  sympathetic  character  is  their  love  of 
song,  of  the  dance,  and  of  all  gymnastic  exercises.  .  .  .  Dante  called 
the  Sienese  gente  vana  (a  vain  people).  But  we  must  reflect  that  the 
altissimo poeta  was  a  Florentine,  and  though  a  sublime  genius,  he  was 
not  able  to  emancipate  himself  from  that  party  hate  and  municipal 
rivalry,  the  great  curse  of  his  time." 

But  for  that  final  touch  about  Dante,  I  might  have  thought  I  was 
reading  a  description  of  the  Americans,  and  more  especially  the 
Bostonians,  so  exactly  did  my  author's  eulogy  of  the  Sienese  embody 

the  facts  of  our  own  character.     But  that  touch  disillusioned  me : 

9 


130  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

even  Dante  would  not  have  called  the  Bostonians  gente  vana,  unless 
he  had  proposed  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  life  in  London.  As  it  was, 
I  was  impatient  to  breathe  that  wondrous  air,  to  bask  in  that  light, 
to  behold  that  incomparable  loveliness,  to  experience  that  proverbial 
hospitality  and  that  frank  and  loyal  friendship,  to  mingle  in  the 
song  and  dance  and  the  gymnastic  exercises ;  and  nothing  but  the 
sober-minded  deliberation  of  the  omnibus-train  which  was  four  hours 
in  going  to  Siena,  prevented  me  from  throwing  myself  into  the  wel- 
coming embrace  of  the  cordial  city  at  once. 

II. 

I  had  time  not  only  to  reflect  that  perhaps  Siena  distinguished 
between  strangers  arriving  at  her  gates,  and  did  not  bestow  an  indis- 
criminate hospitality,  but  to  wander  back  with  the  "  New  Guide " 
quite  to  the  dawn  of  her  history,  when  Senio,  the  son  of  Kemus, 
flying  from  the  wrath  of  his  uncle  Romulus,  stopped  where  Siena 
now  stands  and  built  himself  a  castle.  Whether  the  city  got  her 
name  from  Senio  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  she  adopted  the  family 
arms ;  and  to  this  day  the  she-wolf  suckling  the  twins  is  as  much 
blazoned  about  Siena  as  about  Koine,  if  not  more.  She  was  called 
Urbs  Lupata  even  by  the  Eomans,  from  the  wolf-bearing  seal  of  her 
chief  magistrate ;  and  a  noble  Roman  family  sent  one  of  its  sons  as 
early  as  303  to  perish  at  Siena  fur  the  conversion  of  the  city  to 
Christianity.  When  the  empire  fell,  Siena  suffered  less  than  the 
other  Tuscan  cities  from  the  barbarian  incursions ;  but  she  came 
under  the  rule  of  the  Longobard  kings,  and  then  was  one  of  the 
"  free  cities  "  of  Charlemagne,  from  whose  counts  and  barons,  enriched 
by  his  gifts  of  Sienese  lands  and  castles,  the  Sienese  nobility  trace 
their  descent.  These  foreign  robbers,  whose  nests  the  Florentines 
went  out  of  their  gates  to  destroy,  in  their  neighborhood,  voluntarily 
left  their  castles  in  the  Sienese  territory,  and  came  into  the  city, 
which  they  united  with  the  bishops  in  embellishing  with  beautiful 
palaces  and  ruling  with  an  iron  hand,  till  the  commons  rose  and 
made  good  their  claim  to  a  share  in  their  own  government.     Immu- 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  131 

nities  and  privileges  were  granted  by  Caesar  and  Peter,  and  at  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  century  a  republican  government,  with  an  elective 
magistracy,  was  fully  developed,  and  the  democratized  city  entered 
upon  a  career  of  great  material  prosperity.  "  But  in  the  midst  of 
this  potent  activity  of  political  and  commercial  life,  Siena  more  than 
any  other  Italian  city  was  afflicted  with  municipal  rivalries  and  intes- 
tine discords.  To-day  the  nobles  triumphed  and  hurled  the  commons 
from  power ;  to-morrow  the  people  took  a  bloody  revenge  and  ban- 
ished every  patrician  from  the  city.  Every  change  of  administration 
was  accompanied  by  ostracism,  by  violence,  by  public  tumults,  by 
continual  upheavals;"  and  these  feuds  of  families,  of  parties,  and  of 
classes  were  fostered  and  perpetuated  by  trie  warring  ambitions  of 
the  popes  and  emperors.  From  the  first,  Siena  was  Ghibelline  and 
for  the  emperors,  and  it  is  odd  that  one  of  her  proudest  victories 
should  have  been  won  against  Henry  the  son  of  Barbarossa.  When 
that  emperor  threatened  the  free  cities  with  ruin,  -Siena  was  the  only 
one  in  Tuscany  that  shut  her  gates  against  him ;  and  when  Henry 
laid  siege  to  her,  her  people  sallied  out  of  Fontebranda  and  San 
Marco,  and  fell  upon  his  Germans  and  put  them  to  flight. 

The  Florentines,  as  we  have  seen,  were  of  the  pope's  politics ;  or, 
rather,  they  were  for  their  own  freedom,  which  they  thought  his 
politics  favored,  and  the  Sienese  were  for  theirs,  which  they  believed 
the  imperial  success  would  establish.  They  never  could  meet  upon 
the  common  ground  of  their  common  love  of  liberty,  but  kept 
battling  on  through  four  centuries  of  miserable  wars  till  both  were 
enslaved.  Siena  had  her  shameful  triumph  when  she  helped  in  the 
great  siege  that  restored  the  Medici  to  Florence  in  1530,  and  Flor- 
ence had  her  cruel  revenge  when  her  tyrant  Cosimo  T.  entered  Siena 
at  the  head  of  the  imperial  forces  fifteen  years  later.  The  Floren- 
tines met  their  first  great  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the  Sienese  and  of 
their  own  Ghibelline  exiles  at  Montaperto  (twelve  miles  from  Siena) 
in  1260,  when  the  slaughter  was  so  great,  as  Dante  says,  "  che  fece 
l'Arbia  colorata  in  rosso ; "  and  in  1269  the  Sienese  were  routed 
by  their  own  Guelph  exiles  and  the  Florentines  at  Colle  di  Val 
d*Elsa. 


132  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

A  story  is  told  of  an  official  of  Siena  to  whom  the  Florentines 
sent  in  1860  to  invite  his  fellow-citizens  to  join  them  in  celebrating 
the  union  of  Tuscany  with  the  kingdom  of  Italy.  He  said,  Yes,  they 
would  be  glad  to  send  a  deputation  of  Sienese  to  Florence,  but  would 
the  Florentines  really  like  to  have  them  come  ?  "  Surely  !  Why 
not?"  "  Oh,  that  affair  of  Montaperto,  you  know,"  —  as  if  it  were 
of  the  year  before,  and  must  still,  after  six  hundred  years,  have  been 
rankling  in  the  Florentine  mind.  But  perhaps  in  that  time  it  had 
become  confused  there  with  other  injuries,  or  perhaps  the  Florentines 
of  1860  felt  that  they  had  sufficiently  avenged  themselves  by  their 
victory  of  1269.  This  resulted  in  the  triumph  of  the  Guelphs  in 
Siena,  and  finally  in  the  substitution  of  the  magistracy  of  the  Nine 
for  that  of  the  Thirty.  These  Nine,  or  the  Noveschi,  ruled  the  city 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  with  such  unscrupulous  tyranny  and 
infamous  corruption  that  they  "  succeeded  in  destroying  every  gener- 
ous sentiment,  in  sapping  the  noble  pride  of  character  in  the  Sienese 
population,  and  if  not  in  extinguishing,  at  least  in  cooling,  their  ar- 
dent love  of  liberty,"  and  preparing  them  for  the  rule  of  the  ever- 
dreaded  one-man  power,  which  appeared  in  the  person  of  Pandolfo 
Petrucci  in  1487.  He  misruled  Siena  for  twenty-five  years,  playing 
there,  with  less  astuteness  and  greater  ferocity,  the  part  which  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici  had  played  a  century  earlier  in  earlier  rotten  Florence. 
Petrucci,  too,  like  Lorenzo,  was  called  the  Magnificent,  and  he, 
too,  passed  his  life  in  sensual  debauchery,  in  political  intrigues 
ending  in  bloody  revenges  and  reprisals,  and  in  the  protection 
of  the  arts,  letters,  and  religion.  Of  course  he  beautified  the 
city,  and  built  palaces,  churches,  and  convents  with  the  money 
he  stole  from  the  people  whom  he  gave  peace  to  prosper  in. 
He,  too,  died  tranquilly  of  his  sins  and  excesses,  his  soul  reeking 
with  treasons  and  murders  like  the  fascinating  Lorenzo's ;  and 
his  sons  tried  to  succeed  him  like  Lorenzo's,  but  were  deposed 
like  Pietro  de'  Medici  and  banished.  One  of  his  pleasing  family 
was  that  Achille  Petrucci  who,  in  the  massacre  of  St.  Barthol- 
omew at  Paris,  cut  the  throat  of  the  great  Protestant  admiral, 
Coligny. 


PAN  FORTE  DI  SIENA.  133 

After  them,  the  Sienese  enjoyed  a  stormy  and  intermittent  lib- 
erty within  and  varying  fortunes  of  war  without,  till  the  Emperor 
Charles  V.,  having  subdued  Florence,  sent  a  Spanish  garrison  to 
Siena  with  orders  to  build  him  a  fort  in  that  city.  The  Spaniards 
were  under  the  command  of  Don  Hurtado  de  Mendoza,  who  was 
not  only,  as  my  "  New  Guide "  describes  him,  "  ex-monk,  astute, 
subtle,  fascinating  in  address,  profound  dissimulator,"  but  also  the 
author  of  the  "  History  of  the  War  of  Granada,"  and  of  one  of  the 
most  delightful  books  in  the  world,  namely,  "  The  Life  of  Lazarillo 
de  Tonnes,"  Spanish  rogue  and  beggar,  for  whose  sake  I  freely  for- 
give him  on  my  part  all  his  sins  against  the  Sienese;  especially 
as  they  presently  drove  him  and  his  Spaniards  out  of  the  city  and 
demolished  his  fort. 

The  Sienese  had  regained  their  freedom,  but  they  could  hope  to 
keep  it  only  by  the  help  of  the  French  and  their  allies  the  Florentine 
exiles,  who  were  plotting  under  the  Strozzi  against  the  Medici.  The 
French  friendship  came  to  little  or  nothing  but  promises,  the  exiles 
were  few  and  feeble,  and  in  1554  the  troops  of  the  Emperor  and  of 
Duke  Cosimo  —  him  of  the  terrible  face  and  the  blood-stained  soul, 
murderer  of  his  son,  and  father  of  a  family  of  adulteresses  and  assas- 
sins —  came  and  laid  siege  to  the  doomed  city.  The  siege  lasted 
eighteen  months,  and  until  the  Sienese  were  wasted  by  famine  and 
pestilence,  and  the  women  fought  beside  the  men  for  the  city  which 
was  their  country  and  the  last  hope  of  liberty  in  Italy.  When  the 
famine  began  they  drove  out  the  useless  mouths  (bocche  inutili),  the 
old  men  and  women  and  the  orphan  children,  hoping  that  the  enemy 
would  have  pity  on  these  hapless  creatures ;  the  Spaniards  massacred 
most  of  them  before  their  eyes.  Fifteen  hundred  peasants,  who  tried 
to  bring  food  into  the  city,  were  hung  before  the  walls  on  the  trees, 
which  a  Spanish  writer  says  "  seemed  to  bear  dead  men."  The 
country  round  about  was  laid  waste ;  a  hundred  thousand  of  its 
inhabitants  perished,  and  the  fields  they  had  tilled  lapsed  into  pesti- 
lential marshes  breathing  fever  and  death.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
city  were  reduced  from  forty  to  six  thousand ;  seven  hundred  fami- 
lies preferred  exile  to  slavery. 


134  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

Charles  V.  gave  Siena  as  a  fief  to  his  son,  Philip  II.,  who  ceded  it 
to  Cosirao  I.,  and  he  built  there  the  fort  which  the  Spaniards  had 
attempted.  It  remained  under  the  good  Lorrainese  dukes  till  Napo- 
leon made  it  capital  of  his  Department  of  the  Ombrone,  and  it 
returned  to  them  at  his  fall.  In  1860  it  was  the  first  Tuscan  city  to 
vote  for  the  union  of  Italy  under  Victor  Emmanuel,  —  the  only 
honest  king  known  to  history,  says  my  "  New  Guide." 

III. 

It  is  a  "  New  Guide "  full  of  the  new  wine  of  our  epoch,  and  it 
brags  not  only  of  the  warriors,  the  saints,  the  popes,  the  artists,  the 
authors,  who  have  illustrated  the  Sienese  name,  but  of  the  two  great 
thinkers  in  religion  and  politics  who  have  given  her  truer  glory.  The 
bold  pontiff  Alexander  III.,  who  put  his  foot  on  the  neck  of  the  Em- 
peror at  Venice,  was  a  Sienese ;  the  meek,  courageous  St.  Catherine, 
daughter  of  a  dyer,  and  the  envoy  of  popes  and  princes,  was  a  Sie- 
nese ;  Sallustio  Bandini,  the  inventor  of  the  principle  of  Free  Trade  in 
commerce,  was  a  Sienese ;  and  Socinus,  the  inventor  of  Free  Thought 
in  religion,  was  a  Sienese.  There  is  a  statue  to  Bandini  in  one  of  the 
chief  places  of  Siena,  but  when  my  "  New  Guide  "  was  written  there 
was  as  yet  no  memorial  of  Socinus.  "  The  fame  of  this  glorious 
apostle,"  he  cries  bitterly,  "  who  has  been  called  the  father  of 
modern  rationalism,  is  cherished  in  England,  in  France,  in  Italy,  in 
Switzerland,  in  Holland,  in  Poland,  in  America.  Only  Siena,  who 
should  remember  with  noble  pride  her  most  illustrious  son,  has  no 
street  named  for  him,  no  bust,  no  stone.  Eightly  do  the  strangers 
who  visit  our  city  marvel  at  neglect  which  denies  him  even  a  com- 
memorative tablet  in  the  house  where  he  was  born,  —  the  Casa 
Sozzini,  now  Palazzo  Malavolta,  21  Via  Eicasoli."  The  justness  of 
this  censure  is  not  impugned  by  the  fact  that  the  tablet  has  since 
been  placed  there ;  perhaps  it  was  the  scorn  of  my  "  New  Guide " 
which  lashed  the  Sienese  to  the  act  of  tardy  recognition.  This  has 
now  found  stately  utterance  in  the  monumental  Italian  which  is 
the  admiration  and  despair  of  other  languages  :  — . 


PANFORTE  J)I  SIENA.  135 

"  In  the  first  Half  of  the  16th  Century 

Were  born  in  this  House 

Lelio  and  Fausto  Sozzini, 

Scholars,  Philosophers,  Philanthropists. 

Strenuous  Champions  of  the  Liberty  of  Thought, 

Defenders  of  Human  Reason  against  the  Supernatural, 

They  founded  the  celebrated  Socinian  School, 

Forecasting  by  three  Centuries 

The  doctrine  of  Modern  Rationalism. 

The  Sienese  Liberals,  Admiring,  Reverent, 

Placed  this  Memorial. 

1877." 

I  wandered  into  the  court  of  the  old  palace,  now  involuntarily 
pea-green  with  mould  and  damp,  and  looked  out  from  the  bow-shaped 
terrace  bulging  over  the  garden  behind,  and  across  the  olive  orchards 
—  But  I  forgot  that  I  was  not  yet  in  Siena. 


IV. 

Befoke  our  arrival  I  had  time  to  read  all  the  "  New  Guide  "  had 
to  say  about  the  present  condition  of  this  city.  What  it  was  socially, 
morally,  and  personally  I  knew  already,  and  what  it  was  industri- 
ally and  commercially  I  learned  with  regret.  The  prosperity  of 
Siena  had  reached  its  height  in  the  thirteenth  century,  just  before 
the  great  pest  appeared.  Her  people  then  numbered  a  hundred 
thousand  from  which  they  were  reduced  by  the  plague  to  twenty 
thousand.  Whole  districts  were  depopulated  within  the  walls  ;  the 
houses  fell  down,  the  streets  vanished,  and  the  plough  passed  over 
the  ruins  ;  wide  gardens,  olive  orchards,  and  vineyards  still  nourish 
where  traffic  was  busy  and  life  was  abundant.  The  "New  Guide" 
does  not  say  so,  but  it  is  true  that  Siena  never  fully  recovered  from 
this  terrible  stroke.  At  the  time  of  the  great  siege,  two  hundred 
years  after  the  time  of  the  great  pest,  she  counted  only  forty  thou- 
sand souls  within  her  gates,  and  her  silk  and  woollen  industries, 
which  still  exist,  were  vastly  shrunken  from  their  old  proportions. 
Tl}e  most  evident  industry  in  Siena  now  is  that  of  the  tanners,  which 
hangs  its  banners  of  leather  from  all  the  roofs  in  the  famous  region 


136  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

of  Fontebranda,  and  envelops  the  birthplace  of  St.  Catherine  in  an 
odor  of  tan-bark.  There  is  also  a  prosperous  fabric  of  iron  furniture, 
principally  bedsteads,  which  is  noted  throughout  Italy  ;  this,  with 
some  cotton-factories  and  carpet-looms  on  a  small  scale,  and  some 
agricultural  implement  works,  is  nearly  all  that  the  "  New  Guide  " 
can  boast,  till  he  comes  to  speak  of  the  ancient  marchpane  of  Siena, 
now  called  Panforte,  whose  honored  name  I  have  ventured  to  bestow 
upon  these  haphazard  sketches  of  its  native  city,  rather  because  of 
their  chance  and  random  associations  of  material  and  decorative 
character  than  because  of  any  rivalry  in  quality  to  which  they  can 
pretend.  I  often  saw  the  panforte  in  shop-windows  at  Florence,  and 
had  the  best  intention  in  the  world  to  test  its  excellence,  but  to  this 
day  I  know  only  of  its  merits  from  my  "  New  Guide."  "  This  spe- 
cialty, wholly  Sienese,  enjoys,  in  the  article  of  sweetmeats,  the  pri- 
macy in  Italy  and  beyond,  and  forms  one  of  the  principal  branches  of 
our  industry.  The  panforte  of  Siena  fears  no  competition  or  com- 
parison, either  for  the  exquisiteness  of  its  flavor  or  for  the  beauty  of 
its  artistic  confection:  its  brown  paste,  gemmed  with  broken  almonds, 
is  covered  in  the  jianfortcs  dc  luxe  with  a  frosting  of  sugar,  adorned 
with  broideries,  with  laces,  with  flowers,  with  leaves,  with  elegant 
figures  in  lively  colors,  and  with  artistic  designs,  representing  usually 
some  monument  of  the  city." 

V. 

It  was  about  dark  when  we  reached  Siena,  looking  down  over  her 
wall  upon  the  station  in  the  valley;  but  there  was  still  light  enough 
to  give  us  proof,  in  the  splendid  quarrel  of  two  railway  porters  over 
our  baggage,  of  that  quickness  to  anger  and  readiness  to  forgive 
which  demonstrates  the  excellence  of  heart  in  the  Sienese.  These 
admirable  types  of  the  local  character  jumped  furiously  up  and  down 
in  front  of  each  other,  and  then,  without  striking  a  blow,  instantly 
exchanged  forgiveness  and  joined  in  a  fraternal  conspiracy  to  get 
too  much  money  out  of  me  for  handling  my  trunks.  I  willingly 
became  a  party  to  their  plot  myself  in  gratitude  for  the  impassioned 


A    CITY    GAT'.'.. 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  139 

spectacle  they  had  afforded  me;  and  I  drove  up  through  the  steeply 
winding  streets  of  the  town  with  a  sense  of  nearness  to  the  Middle 
Ages  not  excelled  even  in  my  first  visit  to  Quebec.  Of  Quebec  I  still 
think  when  I  think  of  Siena ;  and  there  are  many  superficial  points 
of  likeness  in  the  two  cities.  Each,  as  Dante  said  of  one,  "  torregia  e 
siede "  ("  sits  and  towers  "  is  no  bad  phrase)  on  a  mighty  front  of 
rock,  round  whose  precipitous  slopes  she  belts  her  girdling  wall. 
The  streets  within  wander  hither  and  thither  at  will ;  in  both  they 
are  narrow  and  hemmed  in  with  the  gray  facades  of  the  stone  houses ; 
without  spreads  a  mighty  valley,  —  watered  at  Quebec  with  the  con- 
fluent St.  Lawrence  and  St.  Charles,  and  walled  at  the  horizon  with 
primevally  wooded  hills ;  dry  at  Siena  with  almost  volcanic  drought, 
and  shut  in  at  the  same  far  range  by  arid  and  sterile  tops  bare  as  the 
skies  above  them,  yet  having  still  the  same  grandeur  and  nobility  of 
form.  After  that  there  is  all  the  difference  you  will,  —  the  difference 
of  the  North  and  South,  the  difference  of  the  Old  World  and  the 
New. 

I  have  always  been  a  friend  of  the  picturesqueness  of  the  Cathedral 
Place  at  Quebec,  and  faithful  to  it  in  much  scribbling  hitherto,  but 
nothing  —  not  even  the  love  of  pushing  a  parallel  —  shall  make  me 
pretend  that  it  is  in  any  manner  or  degree  comparable  to  the  old  and 
deeply  memoried  Piazza  Vittorio  Emmanuele  at  Siena.  This  was 
anciently  Piazza  del  Campo,  but  now  they  call  it  Piazza  Vittorio  Em- 
manuele, because,  since  the  Unification,  they  want  some  piazza  of 
that  dear  name  in  every  Italian  city,  as  I  have  already  noted ;  and  I 
walked  to  it  through  the  Via  Cavour  which  they  must  also  have,  and 
how  it  was  I  failed  to  traverse  a  Via  Garibaldi  I  do  not  understand. 
It  was  in  the  clearness  that  follows  the  twilight  when,  after  the  sud- 
den descent  of  a  vaulted  passage,  I  stood  in  the  piazza  and  saw  the 
Tower  of  the  Mangia  leap  like  a  rocket  into  the  starlit  air.  After 
all,  that  does  not  say  it :  you  must  suppose  a  perfect  silence,  through 
which  this  exquisite  shaft  forever  soars.  When  once  you  have  seen 
the  Mangia,  all  other  towers,  obelisks,  and  columns  are  tame  and 
vulgar  and  earth-rooted ;  that  seems  to  quit  the  ground,  to  be  not  a 
monument  but  a  flight.     The  crescent  of  the  young  moon,  at  half  its 


140 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


height,  looked  sparely  over  the  battle- 
ments of  the  Palazzo  Communale,  from 
which  the  tower  sprang,  upon  the  fronts 
of  the  beautiful  old  palaces  whose  semi- 
circle encloses  the  grand  space  before 
it,  and  touched  with  its  silver  the  waters 
of  the  loveliest  fountain  in  the  world 
whose  statues  and  bas-reliefs  darkled 
above  and  around  a  silent  pool.  There 
were  shops  in  the  basements  of  some 
of  the  palaces,  and  there  were  lamps 
around  the  piazza,  but  there  seemed  no 
one  in  it  but  ourselves,  and  no  figure 
broke   the   gentle    slope    in   which   the 


fgggii 


TIAZZA   COMMUNALE   AND   TOWER   OF   THE    MANGIA. 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  141 

ground  shelves  from  three  sides  towards  the  Palazzo  Communale, 
where  I  left  the  old  republic  in  full  possession  when  I  went  home 
through  the  thronged  and  cheerful  streets  to  bed. 

I  observed  in  the  morning  that  the  present  Italian  Government 
had  taken  occasion  overnight  to  displace  the  ancient  Sienese  signory, 
and  had  posted  a  sentry  at  the  palace  door.  There  had  also  sprung 
up  a  picturesque  cluster  of  wooden-roofed  market-booths  where  peas- 
ant women  sat  before  heaps  of  fruit  and  vegetables,  and  there  was  a 
not  very  impressive  show  of  butter,  eggs,  and  poultry.  Now  I  saw 
that  the  brick-paved  slope  of  the  piazza  was  moss-grown  in  disuse, 
and  that  the  noble  Gothic  and  Kenaissance  palaces  seemed  half  of 
them  uninhabited.  But  there  was  nothing  dilapidated,  nothing  ruin- 
ous in  the  place ;  it  had  simply  a  forsaken  look,  which  the  feeble 
stir  of  buying  and  selling  at  the  market-booths  scarcely  affected. 
The  old  Palace  of  the  Commonwealth  stood  serene  in  the  morning 
light,  and  its  Gothic  windows  gazed  tranquilly  upon  the  shallow  cup 
before  it,  as  empty  now  of  the  furious  passions,  the  mediaeval  hates 
and  rivalries  and  ambitions,  as  of  the  other  volcanic  fires  which  are 
said  once  to  have  burned  there.  These,  indeed,  still  smoulder  beneath 
Siena,  and  every  August  a  tremor  of  earthquake  runs  through  her 
aged  frame ;  but  the  heart  of  her  fierce,  free  youth  is  at  peace  for- 
evermore. 

VI. 

We  waited  at  the  hotel  forty-eight  hours  for  the  proverbially  cor- 
dial reception  of  strangers  which  the  "New  Guide"  had  boasted  in  his 
Sienese.  Then,  as  no  deputation  of  citizens  came  to  offer  us  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  city,  we  set  about  finding  a  lodging  for  ourselves.  At  this 
distance  of  time  I  am  a  little  at  a  loss  to  know  how  our  search,  before 
it  ended,  had  involved  the  complicity  of  a  valet  cle  'place  ;  a  short,  fat, 
amiable  man  of  no  definite  occupation ;  a  barber ;  a  dealer  in  brica- 
brac;  a  hunchbackling  ;  a  mysterious  facchino ;  and  a  were- wolf.  I 
only  know  that  all  these  were  actually  the  agents  of  our  domicilia- 
tion, and  that  without  their  intervention  I  do  not  see  how  we  could 
ever  have  been  settled  in  Siena.     The  valet  had  come  to  show  us  the 


142  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

city,  and  no  caricature  of  him  could  give  a  sufficient  impression  of 
his  forlorn  and  anxious  little  face,  his  livid  silk  hat,  his  threadbare 
coat,  his  meagre  body,  and  his  evanescent  legs.    He  was  a  terribly  pa- 
thetic figure,  and  I  count  it  no  merit  to  have  employed  him  at  once. 
The  first  day  I  gave  him  three  francs  to  keep  away,  and  went  myself 
in  search  of  a  carriage  to  drive  us  about  in  search  of  rooms.     There 
were  no  carriages  at  the  stand,  but  an  old  man  who  kept  a  bookstore 
let  the  lady  of  the  party  have  his  chair  and  his  scaldino  while  I  went 
to  the  stable  for  one.     There  my  purpose  somehow  became  "known, 
and  when  the  driver  mounted  the  box,  and  I  stepped  inside,  the 
were-wolf  mounted  with  him,  and  all  that  morning  he  directed  our 
movements  with  lupine  persistence  and  ferocity,  but  with  a  wolfishly 
characteristic  lack  of  intelligence.    He  had  an  awful  face,  poor  fellow, 
but  I  suspect  that  his  ravenous  eyes,  his  gaunt  cheeks,  his  shaggy 
hair,  and  his  lurking,  illusive  looks,  were  the  worst  of  him ;   and 
heaven  knows  what  dire  need  of  devouring  strangers  he  may  have 
had.    He  did  us  no  harm  beyond  wasting  our  time  upon  unfurnished 
lodgings  in  spite  of  our  repeated  groans  and  cries  for  furnished  ones. 
From  time  to  time  I  stopped  the  carriage  and  drove  him  down  from 
the  box  ;  then  he  ran  beside  us  on  the  pavement,  and  when  we  came 
to  a  walk  on  some  uphill  street  he  mounted  again  beside  the  driver, 
whom  he  at  last  persuaded  to  take  us  to  a  low  tavern  darkling  in 
a  sunless  alley.     There  we  finally  threw  off  his  malign  spell,  and 
driving  back  to  our  hotel,  I  found  the  little  valet  de  place  on  the 
outlook.     He  hopefully  laid  hold  of  me,  and  walked  me  off  to  one 
impossible  apartment  after  another,  —  brick-floored,  scantily  rugged, 
stoveless,   husk-matressed,   mountain-bedsteaded,  where   we   should 
have  to  find  our  own  service,  and  subsist  mainly  upon  the  view  from 
the  windows.     This  was  always  fine  ;  the  valet  had  a  cultivated  eye 
for  a  prospect,  and  there  was  one  of  these  lodgings  which  I  should 
have  liked  to  take  for  the  sake  of  the  boys  playing  mora  in  the  old 
palace  court,  and  the  old  lady  with  a  single  tooth  rising  like  an 
obelisk  from  her  lower  jaw,  who  wished  to  let  it. 

A  boarding-house,  or  pension,  whose  windows  commanded  an  en- 
chanting panorama  of  the  Sienese  hills,  was  provided  with  rather  too 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  143 

much  of  the  landscape  in-doors ;  and  at  another,  which  was  cleanly 
and  attractive,  two  obdurate  young  Englishmen  were  occupying  the 
sunny  rooms  we  wanted  and  would  not  vacate  them  for  several  days. 
The  landlord  conveyed  a  vivid  impression  of  the  violent  character  of 
these  young  men  by  whispering  to  me  behind  his  hand,  while  he 
gently  tried  their  door  to  see  whether  they  were  in  or  not,  before  he 
ventured  to  show  me  their  apartment.  We  could  not  wait,  and  then 
he  tried  to  get  rooms  for  us  on  the  floor  above,  in  an  apartment 
belonging  to  a  priest,  so  that  we  might  at  least  eat  at  his  table ;  but 
he  failed  in  this,  and  we  resumed  our  search  for  shelter.  It  must 
have  been  about  this  time  that  the  short  fat  man  appeared  on  the 
scene,  and  lured  us  off  to  see  an  apartment  so  exquisitely  unsuitable 
that  he  saw  the  despair  and  reproach  in  our  eyes,  and,  without  giving 
us  time  to  speak,  promised  us  a  perfect  apartment  for  the  morrow, 
and  vanished  round  the  first  corner  when  we  got  into  the  street.  In 
the  very  next  barber's  window,  however,  was  a  notice  of  rooms  to  let, 
and  the  barber  left  a  lathered  customer  in  his  chair  while  he  ran 
across  the  way  to  get  the  keys  from  a  shoemaker.  The  shoemaker  was 
at  dinner,  and  his  shop  was  shut ;  and  the  barber  having,  with  how- 
ever great  regret,  to  go  back  to  the  customer  left  steeping  in  his 
lather,  we  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  most  sympathetic  of  all  brica- 
brac  dealers,  who  sent  us  to  the  apartment  of  a  French  lady,  —  an 
apartment  with  a  northern  exposure  as  sunless  as  tireless,  from  which 
we  retreated  with  the  vague  praises  and  promises  of  people  swearing 
in  their  hearts  never  to  be  caught  in  that  place  again.  The  day  went 
on  in  this  vain  cpiest,  but  as  I  returned  to  the  hotel  at  dusk  I  was 
stopped  on  the  stairs  by  a  mysterious  facchino  in  a  blouse;  he  had 
been  waiting  there  for  me,  and  he  whispered  that  the  priest,  whose 
rooms  the  keeper  of  the  pension  had  tried  to  get,  now  had  an  apart- 
ment for  me.  It  proved  that  he  had  not  quite  this,  when  I  went  to 
visit  him  after  dinner,  but  he  had  certain  rooms,  and  a  lady  occu- 
pying an  apartment  on  the  same  floor  had  certain  others;  and  with 
these  and  one  more  room  which  we  got  in  the  pension  below,  we 
really  sheltered  ourselves  at  last.  It  was  not  quite  a  realization  of 
the  hereditary   Sienese  hospitality,  but  we  paid  almost  nothing  for 


144  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

very  comfortable  quarters ;  and  I  do  not  see  how  a  party  of  five  could 
be  better  housed  and  fed  for  twenty-live  francs  a  day  in  the  world. 

We  must  have  been  almost  the  first  lodgers  whom  our  good  eccle- 
siastic and  his  niece  had  ever  had,  their  enterprise  being  so  new ;  the 
rooms  were  pretty  and  fresh,  and  there  was  a  comfortable  stove  in 
our  little  parlor  —  a  franklinetto  which,  three  days  out  of  four,  did 
not  smoke  —  and  a  large  kerosene  lamp  for  our  table  included  in  the 
price  of  two  francs  a  day  which  we  paid  for  our  two  rooms.  We 
grieved  a  good  deal  that  we  could  not  get  all  our  rooms  of  Don  A., 
and  he  sorrowed  with  us,  showing  us  a  jewel  {giojclld)  of  a  room 
which  he  would  have  been  so  glad  to  give  us  if  it  were  not  already 
occupied  by  a  young  man  of  fashion  and  his  dog.  As  we  stood  look- 
ing at  it,  with  its  stove  in  the  corner,  its  carpet,  its  chest  of  drawers, 
and  its  other  splendors,  the  good  Don  A.  holding  his  three-beaked 
classic  lamp  up  for  us  to  see  better,  and  his  niece  behind  him  lost  in 
a  passion  of  sympathy,  which  continually  escaped  in  tender  Ohs  and 
Ahs,  we  sighed  again,  "Yes,  if  we  could  only  have  this,  too !  " 

Don  A.  nodded  his  head  and  compressed  his  lips.  "  It  would  be 
a  big  thing!"  ("Sarebbe  uri  affarom >■!")  And  then  we  all  cast  our 
eyes  to  heaven,  and  were  about  to  break  into  a  common  sigh,  when 
we  heard  the  key  of  the  young  man  of  fashion  in  the  outer  door; 
upon  which,  like  a  party  of  guilty  conspirators,  we  shrank  breath- 
lessly together  for  a  moment,  and  then  fled  precipitately  into  our 
own  rooms.  We  parted  for  that  night  with  many  whispered  vows 
of  esteem,  and  we  returned  in  the  morning  to  take  possession.  It 
was  in  character  with  the  whole  affair  that  on  the  way  we  should 
be  met  by  the  hunchbackling  (whom  I  find  described  also  in  my 
notes  as  a  wry-necked  lamb,  probably  from  some  forcible  contrast 
which  he  presented  to  the  were-wolf)  with  a  perfectly  superb  apart- 
ment, full  of  sun,  in  the  Piazza  Vittorio  Emmanuele,  looking  squarely 
upon  the  Palazzo  Communale  and  the  Tower  of  the  Mangia.  I  was 
forced  to  confess  that  I  had  engaged  my  rooms. 

"A  pity  for  you  !"  cried  the  hunchbackling,  passionately. 

"  I  have  promised,"  I  faltered.  "  One  must  keep  one's  prom- 
ises, no  ? " 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  145 

"  Oh,  you  are  right,  you  are  right,"  said  the  hunchbackliug,  and 
vanished,  and  I  never  saw  him  more.  Had  he  really  the  apartment 
to  which  he  pretended  ? 

VII. 

No  more,  probably,  than  I  had  the  virtue  which  I  affected  about 
keeping  my  promises.  But  I  have  never  been  sorry  that  I  remained 
true  to  the  word  I  had  given  Don  A.,  and  I  do  not  see  what  harm 
there  can  be  in  saying  that  he  was  an  ex-monk  of  the  suppressed 
convent  of  Monte  Olivetto,  who  was  eking  out  the  small  stipend  he 
received  for  his  priestly  offices  in  the  next  parish  church  by  letting 
these  lodgings.  All  the  monks  of  Monte  Olivetto  had  to  be  of  noble 
family,  and  in  one  of  our  rooms  the  blessed  candle  and  crucifix 
which  hung  on  one  side  of  the  bed  were  balanced  by  the  blazon  of 
our  host's  arms  in  a  frame  on  the  other.  Yet  he  was  not  above 
doing  any  sort  of  homely  office  for  our  comfort  and  convenience; 
I  saw  him  with  his  priest's  gown  off,  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  knee- 
breeches,  putting  up  a  bedstead ;  sometimes  I  met  him  on  the  stairs 
with  a  load  of  fire-wood  in  his  arms,  which  I  suspect  he  must  have 
been  sawing  in  the  cellar.  He  bowed  to  me  over  it  with  unabashed 
courtesy,  and  he  and  Maddalena  were  so  simply  proud  and  happy  at 
having  filled  all  their  rooms  for  a  month,  that  one  could  not  help 
sharing  their  cheerfulness.  Don  A.  was  of  a  mechanical  turn,  and 
I  heard  that  he  also  earned  something  by  repairing  the  watches  of 
peasants  who  could  not  or  would  not  pay  for  finer  surgery.  Greater 
gentleness,  sweeter  kindliness  never  surrounded  the  inmates  of  hired 
lodgings  than  enveloped  us  in  the  manners  of  this  good  priest  and 
his  niece.  They  did  together  all  the  work  of  the  apartment,  serving 
us  without  shame  and  without  reluctance,  yet  keeping  a  soft  dignity 
withal  that  was  extremely  pretty.  May  no  word  of  mine  offend 
them,  for  every  word  of  theirs  was  meant  to  make  us  feel  at  home 
with  them  ;  and  I  believe  that  they  will  not  mind  this  public  recog- 
nition of  the  grace  with  which  they  adorned  their  gentle  poverty. 
They  never  intruded,  but  they  were  always  there,  saluting  our  out- 
going  and    incoming,   and   watchful   of   our  slightest   wish.     Often 

10 


146  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

before  we  could  get  our  key  into  the  outer  door  Maddalena  had  run 
to  open  it,  holding  her  lucerna  above  her  head  to  light  us,  and  hailing 
us  with  a  " Buona  sera  Low!"  (Good-evening  to  them — our  lord- 
ships, namely)  to  which  only  music  could  do  justice. 

But  the  landlord  of  the  pension  below,  where  we  took  our  meals, 
was  no  less  zealous  for  the  comfort  of  his  guests,  and  at  that  table  of 
his,  good  at  any  price,  and  wonderful  for  the  little  they  gave,  he  pre- 
sided with  a  hospitality  which  pressed  them  to  eat  of  this  and  that, 
and  kept  the  unstinted  wine  a-flowing,  and  communicated  itself  to 
Luigi,  who,  having  cooked  the  dinner,  hurled  on  a  dress-coat  of  im- 
penetrable antiquity  and  rushed  in  to  help  serve  it;  and  to  Angiolina, 
the  housekeeper,  who  affected  a  sort  of  Yankee  old-maid's  grumpiness, 
but  was  as  sweet  of  soul  as  Maddalena  herself.  More  than  once  has 
that  sympathetic  spirit,  in  passing  me  a  dish,  advised  me  with  a  fine 
movement  of  her  clasping  thumb  which  morsel  to  choose. 

We  took  our  rooms  in  the  belief  that  we  were  on  the  sunny  side 
of  the  house ;  and  so  we  were ;  the  sun  obliquely  bathed  that  whole 
front  of  the  edifice,  and  I  never  can  understand  why  it  should  not 
have  got  in-doors.  It  did  not ;  but  it  was  delightful  in  the  garden 
which  stretched  from  the  rear  of  our  palace  across  to  the  city  wall. 
Just  under  our  windows — but  far  under,  for  we  were  in  the  fourth 
story  —  was  a  wide  stone  terrace,  old,  moss-grown,  balustraded  with 
marble,  from  which  you  descended  by  two  curving  flights  of  marble 
steps  into  the  garden.  There,  in  the  early  March  weather,  which 
succeeded  a  wind-storm  of  three  days,  the  sun  fell  like  a  shining 
silence,  amidst  which  the  bent  figure  of  an  old  gardener  stirred, 
noiselessly  turning  up  the  earth.  In  the  utmost  distance  the  snow- 
covered  Apennines  glistened  against  a  milky  white  sky  growing  pale 
blue  above ;  the  nearer  hills  were  purplish ;  nearer  yet  were  green 
fields,  gray  olive  orchards,  red  plowed  land,  and  black  cypress-clumps 
about  the  villas  with  which  the  whole  prospect  was  thickly  sown. 
Then  the  city  houses  outside  the  wall  began,  and  then  came  the 
beautiful  red  brick  city  wall,  wandering  wide  over  the  levels  and 
heights  and  hollows,  and  within  it  that  sunny  silence  of  a  garden. 
While  I  once  stood  at  the  open  window  looking,  brimful  of  content, 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  147 

tingling  with  it,  a  bugler  came  up  the  road  without  the  wall,  and 
gayly,  bravely  sounded  a  gallant  fanfare,  purely,  as  it  seemed,  for 
love  of  it  and  pleasure  in  it. 

I  call  our  garden  a  garden,  but  it  was  mostly  a  succession  of  fields, 
planted  with  vegetables  for  the  market,  and  closed  round  next  the 
city  wall  with  ranks  of  olive-trees.  Still,  next  the  palace  there  were 
flowers,  or  must  have  been  in  summer ;  and  on  another  morning, 
another  heavenly  morning,  a  young  lady,  doubtless  of  the  ancient 
family  to  which  the  palace  belonged,  came  out  upon  the  terrace  from 
the  first  floor  with  an  elderly  companion,  and,  loitering  listlessly 
there  a  moment,  descended  the  steps  into  the  garden  to  a  stone 
basin  where  some  serving-women  were  washing.  Her  hair  was  ashen 
blonde ;  she  was  slimly  cased  in  black  silk,  and  as  she  slowly  walked, 
she  pulled  forward  the  skirt  a  little  with  one  hand,  while  she  drew 
together  with  the  other  a  light  shawl,  falling  from  the  top  of  her 
head,  round  her  throat ;  her  companion  followed  at  a  little  distance ; 
on  the  terrace  lingered  a  large  white  Persian  cat,  looking  after  them. 

VIII 

These  gardens,  or  fields,  of  Siena  occupy  half  the  space  her  walls 
enclose,  and  the  olives  everywhere  softly  embower  the  borders  of  the 
shrivelled  and  shrunken  old  city,  which  once  must  have  plumply 
filled  their  circuit  with  life.  But  it  is  five  hundred  years  since  the 
great  pest  reduced  her  hundred  thousand  souls  to  fifteen  thousand ; 
generation  after  generation  the  plow  has  gone  over  the  dead  streets, 
and  the  spade  has  been  busy  obliterating  the  decay,  so  that  now 
there  is  no  sign  of  them  where  the  artichokes  stretch  their  sharp 
lines,  and  the  tops  of  the  olives  run  tangling  in  the  wind.  Except 
where  the  streets  carry  the  lines  of  buildings  to  the  ten  gates,  the 
city  is  completely  surrounded  by  these  gardens  within  its  walls; 
they  drop  on  all  sides  from  the  lofty  ledge  of  rocks  to  which  the 
edifices  cling,  with  the  cathedral  pre-eminent,  and  cover  the  slopes 
with  their  herbage  and  foliage ;  at  one  point  near  the  Lizza,  flanking 
'the  fort  which  Cosimo  built  where  the  Spaniards  failed,  a  gaunt 


148 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


A   STREET   IN   SIENA. 


ravine  —  deep,  lonely, 
shadowy  —  pushes  it- 
self up  into  the  heart 
of  the  town.  Once, 
and  once  only,  so  old 
is  the  decay  of  Siena, 
I  saw  the  crumbling 
foundations  of  a  house 
on  a  garden  slope ;  but 
again  and  again  the 
houses  break  away, 
and  the  street  which 
you  have  been  follow- 
ing ceases  in  acreages 
of  vegetation.  Some- 
times the  varied  and 
ever-picturesquely  ir- 
regular ground  has  the 
effect  of  having  fallen 
away  from  the  pal- 
aces ;  the  rear  of  a 
line  of  these,  at  one 
point,  rested  on  mas- 
sive arches,  with  but- 
tresses sprung  fifty  or 
seventy-five  feet  from 
the  lower  level;  and 
on  the  lofty  shoulders 
of  the  palaces,  here 
and  there,  was  caught 
a  bit  of  garden,  and 
lifted  with  its  over- 
hanging hedge  high 
into  the  sun.  There 
are    abundant    evi- 


PANFORTE  DI   SIENA. 


149 


dences  of  that  lost  beauty  and  magnificence  of  Siena  —  she  has 
kept  enough  of  both  —  not  only  in  the  great  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth century  structures  in  the  Via  Cavour,  the  Via  del  Capitano, 
and  the  neighborhood  of  the  Palazzo  Communale,  but  in  many  little 
wandering,  darkling  streets,  where  you  come  upon  exquisite  Gothic 
arches  walled  up  in  the  fronts  of  now  ordinary  houses,  which  before 
some  time  of  great  calamity  must  have  been  the  portals  and  windows 
of  noble  palaces.  These  gave  their  pathos  to  walks  which  were 
bewilderingly  opulent  in  picturesqueness ;  walks  that  took  us  down 
sharp  declivities  dropping  under  successive  arches  between  the  house- 
walls,  and  flashing  out  upon  sunny  prospects  of  gardens ;  up  steep 
thoroughfares  climbing  and  crooking  from  the  gates  below,  and 
stopping  as  if  for  rest  in  successive  piazzas,  till  they  reach  the  great 
avenue  which  stretches  along  the  high  spine  of  the  city  from  Porta 
Camollia  to  Porta  Eomana.  Sharp  turns  everywhere  bring  your 
nose  against  some  incomparable  piece  of  architecture,  or  your  eye 
upon  some  view  astonishingly  vast,  and  smiling  or  austere,  but 
always  enchanting. 

The  first  night  we 
Lound  the  Via  Cavour 
full  of  people,  walking 
and  talking  together ; 
and  there  was  always 
the  effect  of  out-door 
liveliness  in  the  ancient 
town,  which  is  partly 
to  be  accounted  for  by 
the  pungent  strength  of 
the  good  air.  This  stirs 
and  sustains  one  like 
the  Swiss  air,  and  when 
not  in  too  rapid  motion 

it  is  delicious.  In  March  I  will  own  that  its  motion  was  often  too 
rapid.  It  swept  cold  from  the  Apennines,  and  one  night  it  sifted  the 
gray  depths  of  the  streets  full  of  snow.     The  next  morning  the  sun 


A   HIGH   BREEZE. 


150  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

blazed  out  with  that  ironical  smile  which  we  know  here  as  well  as  in 
Italy,  and  Via  Cavour  was  full  of  people  lured  forth  by  his  sarcastic 
glitter,  though  the  wind  blew  pitilessly.  "  Marzo  matio  ! "  (Crazy 
March !)  said  the  shopman,  with  a  sympathetic  smile  and  impressive 
shrug,  to  whom  I  complained  of  it ;  and  I  had  to  confess  that  March 
was  no  better  in  America.  The  peasants,  who  took  the  whole  breadth 
of  Via  Cavour  with  their  carts  laden  with  wine  and  drawn  by  wide- 
horned  dun  oxen,  had  their  faces  tied  up  against  the  blast,  which 
must  have  been  terrible  on  their  hills ;  and  it  roared  and  blustered 
against  our  lofty  eyry  in  Palazzo  Bandini-Piccolomini  with  a  force 
that  penetrated  it  with  icy  cold.  It  was  quite  impossible  to  keep 
warm;  with  his  back  planted  well  into  the  fire-place  blazing  with 
the  little  logs  of  the  country,  and  fenced  about  on  the  windward 
side  with  mattresses  and  sofa-pillows,  a  suffering  novelist  was  able  to 
complete  his  then  current  fiction  only  at  the  risk  of  freezing. 

But  before  this,  and  after  it,  we  had  weather  in  which  the  streets 
were  as  much  a  pleasure  to  us  as  to  the  Sienese;  and  in  fact  I  do 
not  know  where  I  would  rather  be  at  this  moment  than  in  Via  Cavour, 
unless  it  were  on  the  Grand  Canal  at  Venice  —  or  the  Lungarno  at 
Florence — or  the  Pincio  at  Eome  —  or  Piazza  Bra  at  Verona.  Any 
of  these  places  would  do,  and  yet  they  would  all  lack  the  strictly 
mediaeval  charm  which  belongs  to  Siena,  and  which  perhaps  you  feel 
most  when  you  stand  before  the  Tolomei  Palace,  with  its  gray  Gothic 
facade,  on  the  richly  sculptured  porch  of  the  Casino  dei  Nobili.  At 
more  than  one  point  the  gaunt  Roman  wolf  suckles  her  adoptive 
twins  on  the  top  of  a  pillar ;  and  the  olden  charm  of  prehistoric  fable 
mingles  with  the  interest  of  the  city's  proper  life,  when  her  people 
fought  each  other  for  their  freedom  in  her  streets,  and  never  trusted 
one  another  except  in  some  fiery  foray  against  the  enemy  beyond 
her  gates. 

Let  the  reader  not  figure  to  himself  any  broad,  straight  level  when 
I  speak  of  Via  Cavour  as  the  principal  street ;  it  is  only  not  so  nar- 
row and  steep  and  curving  as  the  rest,  and  a  little  more  light  gets 
into  it ;  but  there  is  one  level,  and  one  alone,  in  all  Siena,  and  that 
is  the  Lizza,  the  public  promenade,  which  looks  very  much  like  an 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  151 

artificial  level.  It  is  planted  with  pleasant  little  bosks  and  trim 
hedges,  beyond  which  lurk  certain  cafes  and  beer-houses,  and  it  has 
walks  and  a  drive.  On  a  Sunday  afternoon  of  February,  when  the 
military  band  played  there,  and  I  was  told  that  the  fine  world  of 
Siena  resorted  to  the  Lizza,  we  hurried  thither  to  see  it;  but  we 
must  have  come  too  late.  The  band  were  blowing  the  drops  of 
distilled  music  out  of  their  instruments  and  shutting  them  up, 
and  on  the  drive  there  was  but  one  equipage  worthy  of  the  name. 
Within  this  carriage  sat  a  little  refined-looking  boy,  —  delicate,  pale, 
the  expression  of  an  effete  aristocracy;  and  beside  him  sat  a  very 
stout,  gray-mustached,  side-whiskered,  eagle-nosed,  elderly  gentleman, 
who  took  snuff  out  of  a  gold  box,  and  looked  like  Old  Descent  in 
person.  I  felt,  at  sight  of  them,  that  I  had  met  the  Sienese  nobility, 
whom  otherwise  I  did  not  see;  and  yet  I  do  not  say  that  they  may 
not  have  been  a  prosperous  fabricant  of  panforte  and  his  son.  A 
few  young  bucks,  with  fierce  trotting-ponies  in  two-seated  sulkies, 
hammered  round  the  drive ;  the  crowd  on  foot  was  mostly  a  cloaked 
and  slouch-hatted  crowd,  which  in  Italy  is  always  a  plebeian 
crowd.  There  were  no  ladies,  but  many  women  of  less  degree,  pretty 
enough,  well-dressed  enough,  and  radiantly  smiling.  In  the  centre 
of  the  place  shone  a  resplendent  group  of  officers,  who  kept  quite  to 
themselves.  We  could  not  feel  that  we  had  mingled  greatly  in  the 
social  gayeties  of  Siena,  and  we  wandered  off  to  climb  the  bastions 
of  the  old  Medicean  fort  —  very  bold  with  its  shield  and  pallc  over 
the  gateway  —  and  listened  to  the  bees  humming  in  the  oleander 
hedge  beneath. 

This  was  toward  the  end  of  February ;  a  few  days  later  I  find  it 
recorded  that  in  walking  half-way  round  the  city  outside  the  wall 
I  felt  the  sun  very  hot,  and  heard  the  birds  singing  over  the  fields, 
where  the  peasants  were  breaking  the  clods  with  their  hoes.  The 
almond-trees  kept  blossoming  with  delicate  courage  all  through 
February,  like  girls  who  brave  the  lingering  cold  with  their  spring 
finery ;  and  though  the  grass  was  green,  with  here  and  there  daring 
dandelions  in  it,  the  landscape  generally  had  a  pathetic  look  of  win- 
ter weariness,  when  we  drove  out  into  the  country  beyond  the  wall. 


152 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


It  is  this  wall  with  the  color  of  its  red  brick  which  everywhere 
warms  up  the  cold  gray  tone  of  Siena.  It  is  like  no  other  city  wall 
that  I  know,  except  that  of  Pisa,  and  is  not  supported  with  glacis  on 


UNDER   THE   ARCHES    IN   SIENA. 


the  inside,  but  rises  sheer  from  the  earth  there  as  on  the  outside. 
With  its  towers  and  noble  gates  it  is  beautiful  always ;  and  near  the 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  153 

railway  station  it  obligingly  abounds  in  repaired  spots  which  look 
as  if  they  had  been  holes  knocked  in  it  at  the  great  siege.  I  hope 
they  were. 

It  is  anywhere  a  study  for  a  painter,  —  preferably  a  water-colorist, 
I  should  say,  —  and  I  do  not  see  how  an  architect  could  better  use 
his  eyes  in  Italy  than  in  perusing  the  excellent  brick-work  of  certain 
of  the  smaller  houses,  as  well  as  certain  palaces  and  churches,  both 
in  the  city  and  the  suburbs  of  Siena.  Some  of  the  carved  brick  there 
is  delightful,  and  the  material  is  treated  with  peculiar  character  and 
feeling. 

IX. 

The  ancient  palace  of  the  Eepubiic,  the  Palazzo  Communale,  is  of 
brick,  which  allegorizes  well  enough  the  multitude  of  plebeian  wills 
and  forces  that  went  to  the  constitution  of  the  democratic  state.  No 
friend  of  popular  rule,  I  suppose,  can  boast  that  these  little  mediaeval 
commonwealths  of  Italy  were  the  homes  of  individual  liberty.  They 
were  popular  tyrannies ;  but  tyrannies  as  they  were,  they  were 
always  better  than  the  single-handed  despotisms,  the  governo  d'un 
solo,  which  supplanted  them,  except  in  the  one  fact  only  that  they 
did  not  give  continuous  civil  peace.  The  crater  of  the  extinct  vol- 
cano before  the  Palazzo  Communale  in  Siena  was  always  boiling 
with  human  passions,  and  for  four  hundred  years  it  vomited  up  and 
ingulfed  innumerable  governments  and  forms  of  government,  now 
aristocratic  and  now  plebeian.  Prom  those  beautiful  Gothic  windows 
many  a  traitor  has  dangled  head  downwards  or  feet  downwards,  as 
the  humor  took  the  mob ;  many  a  temporizer  or  usurper  has  hurtled 
from  that  high  balcony  ruining  down  to  the  stones  below. 

Carlo  Folletti-Possati,  a  Sienese  citizen  of  our  own  time,  has  made 
a  luminous  and  interesting  study  of  the  "Costumi  Senese"  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  no  reader  of  Italian  should  fail  to  get  when  he 
goes  to  Siena,  for  the  sake  of  the  light  which  it  throws  upon  that 
tumultuous  and  struggling  past  of  one  of  the  bravest  and  doughtiest 
little  peoples  that  ever  lived.  In  his  chapters  on  the  "Daily  Life" 
of  the  Sienese  of  those  times,  he  speaks  first  of  the  world-wide  differ- 


154  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

ence  between  the  American  democracy  and  the  mediaeval  democra- 
cies. He  has  read  his  De  Tocqueville,  and  he  understands,  as  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold  is  beginning  to  understand,  that  the  secret  of  our 
political  success  is  in  the  easy  and  natural  fit  of  our  political  govern- 
ment, the  looseness  of  our  social  organization;  and  he  shows  with 
attractive  clearness  how,  in  the  Italian  republics,  there  was  no  con- 
ception of  the  popular  initiative,  except  in  the  matter  of  revolution, 
which  was  extra-constitutional.  The  government  once  established, 
no  matter  how  democratic,  how  plebeian  its  origin,  it  began  at  once 
to  interfere  with  the  personal  affairs  of  the  people.  It  regulated  their 
household  expenses;  said  what  dishes  and  how  many  they  might 
have  at  dinner ;  clipped  women's  gowns,  and  forbade  the  braid  and 
laces  on  their  sleeves  and  stomachers ;  prescribed  the  fashion  of  men's 
hats  and  cloaks ;  determined  the  length  of  coats,  the  size  of  bricks, 
and  the  dimensions  of  letter-paper ;  costumed  the  different  classes  ; 
established  the  hours  of  pleasure  and  business ;  limited  the  number 
of  those  who  should  be  of  this  or  that  trade  or  profession  ;  botjiered 
in  every  way.  In  Siena,  at  a  characteristic  period,  the  signory  were 
chosen  every  two  months,  and  no  man  might  decline  the  honor  and 
burden  of  office  except  under  heavy  fine.  The  government  must 
have  been  as  great  a  bore  to  its  officers  as  to  its  subjects,  for,  once 
elected,  the  signory  were  obliged  to  remain  night  and  day  in  the 
public  palace.  They  could  not  leave  it  except  for  some  grave  reason 
of  state,  or  sickness,  or  marriage,  or  the  death  of  near  kindred,  and 
then  they  could  only  go  out  two  at  a  time,  with  a  third  for  a  spy 
upon  them.  Once  a  week  they  could  converse  with  the  citizens,  but 
solely  on  public  business.  Then,  on  Thursdays,  the  signory  —  the 
Nine,  or  the  Twelve,  or  the  Priors,  whichever  they  chanced  to  be  — 
descended  from  their  magnificent  confinement  in  the  apartments  of 
state  to  the  great  hall  of  the  ground  floor,  and  heard  the  petitions  of 
all  comers.  Otherwise,  their  official  life  was  no  joke :  in  the  months 
of  March  and  April,  1364,  they  consumed  in  their  public  labors 
eleven  reams  of  paper,  twenty-one  quires  of  parchment,  twelve 
pounds  of  red  and  green  sealing-wax,  five  hundred  goose-quills,  and 
twenty  bottles  of  ink. 


PAN  FORTE  DI  SIENA.  155 

Besides  this  confinement  at  hard  labor,  they  were  obliged  to  suffer 
from  the  shrieks  of  the  culprits,  who  were  mutilated  or  put  to  death 
in  the  rear  of  the  palace  ;  for  in  those  days  prison  expenses  were 
saved  by  burning  a  witch  or  heretic,  tearing  out  the  tongue  of  a 
blasphemer,  striking  off  the  right  hand  of  a  perjurer  or  bigamist, 
and  the  right  foot  of  a  highwayman.  The  Sienese  in  course  of  time 
became  so  refined  that  they  expelled  the  mutilated  wretches  from 
the  city,  that  they  might  not  offend  the  eye,  after  the  infliction  of 
their  penalties ;  but  in  the  mean  while  the  signory  could  not  bear 
the  noise  of  their  agony,  especially  while  they  sat  at  dinner ;  and 
the  execution-grounds  were  finally  changed  to  a  remote  quarter. 

It  is  well  enough  for  the  tourist  to  give  a  thought  to  these  facts 
and  conditions  of  the  times  that  produced  the  beautiful  architecture 
of  the  Palazzo  Communale  and  the  wonderful  frescos  which  illumine 
its  dim-vaulted  halls  and  chambers.  The  masters  who  wrought  either 
might  have  mixed  the  mortar  for  their  bricks,  and  the  colors  for  their 
saints  and  angels,  and  allegories  and  warriors,  with  human  blood,  it 
flowed  so  freely  and  abundantly  in  Siena.  Poor,  splendid,  stupid, 
glorious  past !  I  stood  at  the  windows  of  the  people's  palace  and 
looked  out  on  the  space  in  the  rear  where  those  culprits  used  to  dis- 
turb the  signory  at  their  meals,  and  thanked  Heaven  that  I  was  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  place  is  flanked  now  by  an  immense 
modern  prison,  whose  ample  casements  were  crowded  with  captives 
pressing  to  them  for  the  sun ;  and  in  the  distance  there  is  a  beautiful 
view  of  an  insane  asylum,  the  largest  and  most  populous  in  Italy. 

I  suppose  the  reader  will  not  apprehend  a  great  deal  of  comment 
from  me  upon  the  frescos,  inexpressibly  quaint  and  rich,  from  which 
certain  faces  and  certain  looks  remain  with  me  yet.  The  pictures 
figure  the  great  scenes  of  Sienese  history  and  fable.  There  are  the 
battles  in  which  the  republic  triumphed,  to  the  disadvantage  chiefly 
of  the  Florentines ;  there  are  the  victorious  encounters  of  her  son 
Pope  Alexander  III.  with  Barbarossa ;  there  are  allegories  in  which 
her  chief  citizens  appear.  In  one  of  these  —  I  think  it  is  that  repre- 
senting "Good  and  Bad  Government,"  painted  by  Lorenzetti  in  1337 
*  —  there  is  a  procession  of  Sienese  figures  and  faces  of  the  most  curi- 


156  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

ous  realistic  interest,  and  above  their  heads  some  divine  and  august 
ideal  shapes, — a  Wisdom,  from  whose  strange  eyes  all  mystery  looks, 
and  a  Peace  and  a  Fortitude  which,  for  an  unearthly  dignity  and 
beauty,  I  cannot  remember  the  like  of.  There  is  also,  somewhere  in 
those  dusky  halls,  a  most  noble  St.  Victor  by  Sodoma ;  and  I 
would  not  have  my  readers  miss  that  sly  rogue  of  a  saint  ("We  are 
famous  for  our  saints  in  Siena,"  said  the  sardonic  custodian,  with 
a  shrug)  who  is  represented  in  a  time  of  interdict  stealing  a  blessing 
from  the  Pope  for  his  city  by  having  concealed  under  his  cloak  a 
model  of  it  when  he  appears  before  the  pontiff!  For  the  rest,  there 
is  an  impression  of  cavernous  gloom  left  from  many  of  the  rooms  of 
the  palace  which  characterizes  the  whole  to  my  memory ;  and  as  I 
look  back  into  it,  beautiful,  mystical,  living  eyes  glance  out  of  it; 
noble  presences,  solemn  attitudes,  forms  of  grandeur  faintly  appear ; 
and  then  all  is  again  a  hovering  twilight,  out  of  which  I  am  glad  to 
emerge  into  the  laughing  sunshine  of  the  piazza. 

X. 

A  monument  of  the  old  magnanimity  of  Siena  is  that  Capella  di 
Piazza  in  front  of  the  palace,  at  the  foot  of  the  tower,  which  the 
tourist  goes  to  see  for  the  sake  of  Sodoma' s  fresco  in  it,  but  which 
deserves  to  be  also  revered  as  the  memorial  of  the  great  pest  of  1348 ; 
it  was  built  in  1352,  and  thrice  demolished  and  thrice  rebuilt  before 
it  met  with  public  approval.  This  and  the  beautiful  Fonte  Gaja  — 
as  beautiful  in  its  way  as  the  tower  —  make  the  piazza  a  place  to 
linger  in  and  come  back  to  at  every  chance.  The  fountain  was 
designed  by  Giacomo  della  Quercia,  who  was  known  thereafter  as 
Giacomo  della  Fonte,  and  it  was  called  the  Gay  Fountain  in  memory 
of  the  festivities  with  which  the  people  celebrated  the  introduction 
of  good  water  into  their  city  in  1419.  Seven  years  the  artist  wrought 
upon  it,  and  three  thousand  florins  of  gold  the  republic  paid  for  the 
work,  which  after  four  hundred  years  has  been  restored  in  all  its 
first  loveliness  by  Tito  Sarocchi,  an  admirable  Sienese  sculptor  of 
our  day. 


FOUNTAIN   OUTSIDE    OF   THE    WALL   AT   SIENA. 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA. 


159 


There  are  six  fountains  in  all,  in  different  quarters  of  the  city ;  and 
of  these,  the  finest  are  the  two  oldest,  —  Fonte  Branda  of  the  twelfth 
century,  and  Fonte  Nuova  of  the  fourteenth.  Fonte  Branda  I  will 
allow  to  be  the  more  famous,  but  never  so  beautiful  as  Fonte  Nuova. 
They  are  both  as  practicable  now  as  when  they  were  built,  and  Fonte 


WASHING-DAY.  —  SIENA. 


Nuova  has  a  small  house  atop  of  its  arches,  where  people  seem  to 
live.  The  arches  are  Gothic,  and  the  delicate  carved  brick-work  of 
Siena  decorates  their  sharp  spring.  Below,  in  the  bottom  of  the  four- 
sided  structure,  is  the  clear  pool  from  whose  affluent  pipes  the  neigh- 
borhood comes  to  draw  its  water  (in  buckets  hammered  from  solid 
copper  into  antique  form),  and  in  which  women  seem  to  be  always 
rinsing  linen,  or  beating  it  with  wooden  paddles  in  the  Latin  fashion. 


160  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

Fonte  Bran  da  derives  a  world-wide  celebrity  from  being  mentioned 
by  Dante  and  then  having  its  honors  disputed  by  a  small  stream  of 
its  name  elsewhere.  It,  too,  is  a  lovely  Gothic  shape,  and  whenever 
I  saw  it  wash-day  was  in  possession  of  it.  The  large  pool  which  the 
laundresses  had  whitened  with  their  suds  is  used  as  a  swimming- vat 
in  summer ;  and  the  old  fountain  may  therefore  be  considered  in  very 
active  use  still,  so  many  years  after  Dante  dedicated  the  new  fountain 
to  disputed  immortality  with  a  single  word.  It  was  one  of  those 
extremely  well-ventilated  days  of  March  when  I  last  visited  Fonte 
Branda ;  and  not  only  was  the  linen  of  all  Siena  blowing  about 
from  balconies  and  house-tops,  but,  from  a  multitude  of  galleries  and 
casements,  hides  of  leather  were  lustily  flapping  and  giving  out  the 
pungent  aroma  of  the  tan.  It  is  a  region  of  tanneries,  and  some  of 
them  are  of  almost  as  august  a  presence  as  the  Fonte  Branda  itself. 
We  had  not  come  to  see  either,  but  to  pay  our  second  visit  to  the 
little  house  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  who  was  born  and  lived  a  child 
in  this  neighborhood,  the  good  Contrada  dell'  Oca,  or  Goose  Ward, 
which  took  this  simple  name  while  other  wards  of  Siena  called  them- 
selves after  the  Dragon,  the  Lion,  the  Eagle,  and  other  noble  beasts 
and  birds.  The  region  has  therefore  the  odor  of  sanctity  as  well  as 
of  leather,  and  is  consecrated  by  the  memory  of  one  of  the  best  and 
bravest  and  meekest  woman's  lives  ever  lived.  Her  house  here  is 
much  visited  by  the  curious  and  devout,  and  across  a  chasmed  and 
gardened  space  from  the  fountain  rises  high  on  the  bluff  the  high- 
shouldered  bulk  of  the  church  of  San  Domenico,  in  which  Catherine 
was  first  rapt  in  her  beatific  visions  of  our  Lord,  conversing  with 
him,  and  giving  him  her  heart  for  his  in  mystical  espousals. 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA. 


161 


XL 

EW  strangers  in  Siena  fail  to  visit  the  house 
where  that  great  woman  and  saint,  Cate- 
rina  Benincasa,  was  born  in  1347.  She 
was  one  of  a  family  of  thirteen  or  four- 
teen children,  that  blessed  the  union  of 
Giacomo  and  Lapa,  who  were  indeed  well- 
in-the-house  as  their  name  is,  being  inter- 
preted; for  with  the  father's  industry  as 
a  dyer,  and  the  mother's  thrift,  they  lived 
not  merely  in  decent  poverty,  but  in  suffi- 
cient ease ;  and  it  was  not  from  a  need  of 
her  work  nor  from  any  want  of  piety  in 
themselves  that  her  parents  at  first  opposed  her  religious  inclina- 
tion, but  because  (as  I  learn  from  the  life  of  her  written  by 
that  holy  man,  G.  B.  Francesia),  hearing  on  every  side  the  praises 
of  her  beauty  and  character,  they  hoped  to  make  a  splendid  mar- 
riage for  her.  When  she  persisted  in  her  prayers  and  devotions, 
they  scolded  and  beat  her,  as  good  parents  used  to  do,  and  made 
her  the  household  drudge.  But  one  day  while  the  child  was  at 
prayer  the  father  saw  a  white  dove  hovering  over  her  head,  and 
though  she  said  she  knew  nothing  of  it,  he  was  struck  with  awe 
and  ceased  to  persecute  her.  She  was  now  fourteen,  and  at  this 
time  she  began  her  penances,  sleeping  little  on  the  hard  floor  where 
she  lay,  scourging  herself  continually,  wearing  a  hair  shirt,  and 
lacerating  her  flesh  with  chains.  She  fell  sick,  and  was  restored 
to  health  only  by  being  allowed  to  join  a  sisterhood,  under  the  rule 
of  St.  Dominic,  who  were  then  doing  many  good  works  in  Siena. 
After  that  our  Lord  began  to  appear  to  her  in  the  Dominican 
church ;  she  was  likewise  tempted  of  the  devil ;  but  Christ  ended  by 
making  her  his  spouse.  "While  her  ecstasies  continued  she  not  only 
visited  the  sick  and  poor,  but  she  already  took  an  interest  in  public 
affairs,  appealing  first  to  the  rival  factions  in  Siena  to  mitigate  their 
•furies,  and  then  trying  to  make  peace  between  the  Ghibellines  of 

11 


162  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

that  city  and  the  Guelphs  of  Florence.  She  pacified  many  family 
feuds;  multitudes  thronged  to  see  her  and  hear  her;  and  the  Pope 
authorized  her  to  preach  throughout  the  territory  of  Siena.  While 
she  was  thus  dedicated  to  the  salvation  of  souls,  war  broke  out 
afresh  between  the  Sienese  and  Florentines,  and  in  the  midst  of  it 
the  terrible  pest  appeared.  Then  the  saint  gave  herself  up  to 
the  care  of  the  sick,  and  performed  miracles  of  cure,  at  the  same 
time  suffering  persecution  from  the  suspicions  of  the  Sienese,  among 
whom  question  of  her  patriotism  arose. 

She  now  began  also  to  preach  a  new  crusade  against  the  Saracens, 
and  for  this  purpose  appeared  in  Pisa.  She  went  later  to  Avignon 
to  beseech  the  Pope  to  remove  an  interdict  laid  upon  the  Florentines, 
and  then  she  prevailed  with  him  to  remove  his  court  to  the  ancient 
seat  of  St.  Peter. 

The  rest  of  her  days  were  spent  in  special  miracles ;  in  rescuing 
cities  from  the  plague;  in  making  peace  between  the  different  Italian 
states  and  between  all  of  them  and  the  Pope;  in  difficult  journeys; 
in  preaching  and  writing.  "And  two  years  before  she  died,"  says 
her  biographer,  "  the  truth  manifested  itself  so  clearly  in  her,  that 
she  prayed  certain  scriveners  to  put  in  writing  what  she  should  say 
during  her  ecstasies.  In  this  manner  there  was  soon  composed  the 
treatise  on  Obedience  and  Prayer,  and  on  Divine  Providence,  which 
contains  a  dialogue  between  a  Soul  and  God.  She  dictated  as  rapidly 
as  if  reading,  in  a  clear  voice,  with  her  eyes  closed  and  her  arms 
crossed  on  her  breast  and  her  hands  opened  her  limbs  became  so 
rigid  that,  having  ceased  to  speak,  she  remained  a  long  hour  silent ; 
then,  holy  water  being  sprinkled  in  her  face,  she  revived."  She  died 
in  Rome  in  1380 ;  but  even  after  her  death  she  continued  to  work 
miracles ;  and  her  head  was  brought  amidst  great  public  rejoic- 
ings to  her  native  city.  A  procession  went  out  to  receive  it, 
led  by  the  Senate,  the  Bishop  of  Siena,  and  all  the  bishops  of 
the  state,  with  all  the  secular  and  religious  orders.  "That  which 
was  wonderful  and  memorable  on  this  occasion,"  says  the  Diario 
Senese,  "was  that  Madonna  Lapa,  mother  of  our  Seraphic  Com- 
patriot,—  who   had   many  years   before   restored   her   to    life,   and 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  163 

liberated   her   from  the   pains   of   hell,  —  was   led  to   the   solemn 

encounter." 

It  seems  by  all  accounts  to  have  been  one  of  the  best  and  strongest 
heads  that  ever  rested  on  a  woman's  shoulders —  or  a  man's,  for  the 
matter  of  that ;  apt  not  only  for  private  beneficence,  but  for  high 
humane  thoughts  and  works  of  great  material  and  universal  moment; 
and  I  was  willing  to  see  the  silken  purse,  or  sack,  in  which  it  was 
brought  from  Ronie,  and  which  is  now  to  be  viewed  in  the  little 
chamber  where  she  used  to  pillow  the  poor  head  so  hard.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  wished  to  come  any  nearer  the  saint's  mortal  part,  but 
our  Roman  Catholic  brethren  have  another  taste  in  such  matters, 
and  the  body  of  St.  Catherine  has  been  pretty  well  dispersed  about 
the  world  to  supply  them  with  objects  of  veneration.  One  of  her 
fingers,  as  I  learn  from  the  Diario  Senese  of  Girolamo  Gigli  (the  most 
confusing,  not  to  say  stupefying,  form  of  history  I  ever  read,  being 
the  collection  under  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  several  days  of 
the  year  of  all  the  events  happening  on  each  in  Siena  since  the  time 
of  Remus's  son),  is  in  the  Certosa  at  Pontignano,  where  it  has  been 
seen  by  many,  to  their  great  advantage,  with  the  wedding-ring  of 
Jesus  Christ  upon  it.  Her  right  thumb  is  in  the  church  of  the 
Dominicans  at  Camporeggi ;  one  of  her  ribs  is  in  the  cathedral  at 
Siena;  another  in  the  church  of  the  Company  of  St.  Catherine, 
from  which  a  morsel  has  been  sent  to  the  same  society  in  the  city  of 
Lima,  in  Peru  ;  her  cervical  vertebra  and  one  of  her  slippers  are 
treasured  by  the  Nuns  of  Paradise  ;  in  the  monastery  of  Sts.  Dominic 
and  Sixtus  at  Rome  is  her  right  hand;  her  shoulder  is  in  the  convent 
of  St.  Catherine  at  Magnanopoli ;  and  her  right  foot  is  in  the  church 
of  San  Giovanni  e  Paolo  at  Venice.  In  St.  Catherine  at  Naples  are 
a  shoulder-bone  and  a  finger ;  in  other  churches  there  are  a  piece  of 
an  arm  and  a  rib ;  in  San  Bartolomeo  at  Salerno  there  is  a  finger; 
the  Predicatori  at  Colonia  have  a  rib ;  the  Canons  of  Eau-Court  in 
Artois  have  a  good-sized  bone  (osso  di  giusta  grandczza) ;  and  the 
good  Gigli  does  not  know  exactly  what  bone  it  is  they  revere  in  the 
Chapel  Royal  at  Madrid.     But  perhaps  this  is  enough,  as  it  is. 


164 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


XII. 

The  arched  and  pillared  front  of  St.  Catherine's  house  is  turned 
toward  a  street  on  the  level  of  Fonte  Branda,  but  we  reached  it  from 

the  level  above,  whence  we 
clambered  down  to  it  by  a  de- 
clivity that  no  carriage  could 
descend.  It  has  been  converted, 
up  stairs  and  down,  into  a  num- 
ber of  chapels,  and  I  suppose 
that  the  ornate  facade  dates 
from  the  ecclesiastic  rather 
than  the  domestic  occupation. 
Of  a  human  home  there  are  in- 
deed few  signs,  or  none,  in  the 
house  ;  even  the  shop  in  which 
the  old  dyer,  her  father,  worked 
at  his  trade  has  been  turned 
into  a  chapel  and  enriched,  like 
the  rest,  with  gold  and  silver, 
gems  and  precious  marbles. 
From  the  house  we  went  to  the  church  of  San  Domenico,  hard  by, 
and  followed  St.  Catherine's  history  there  through  the  period  of  her 
first  ecstasies,  in  which  she  received  the  stigmata  and  gave  her  heart 
to  her  heavenly  Spouse  in  exchange  for  his  own.  I  do  not  know 
how  it  is  with  other  Protestants,  but  for  myself  I  will  confess  that 
in  the  place  where  so  many  good  souls  for  so  many  ages  have  stood 
in  the  devout  faith  that  the  miracles  recorded  really  happened  there, 
I  could  not  feel  otherwise  than  reverent.  Illusion,  hallucination  as 
it  all  was,  it  was  the  error  of  one  of  the  purest  souls  that  ever  lived, 
and  of  one  of  the  noblest  minds.  "  Here,"  says  the  printed  tablet 
appended  to  the  wall  of  the  chapel,  "here  she  was  invested  with  the 
habit  of  St.  Dominic ;  and  she  was  the  first  woman  who  up  to  that 
time  had  worn  it.  Here  she  remained  withdrawn  from  the  world, 
listening  to  the  divine  services  of  the  church,  and  here  continually 


THE  RETURN  FROM  THE  FOUNTAIN. 


PAN  FORTE  DI  SIENA.  16-5 

in  divine  colloquy  she  conversed  familiarly  with  Jesus  Christ,  her 
Spouse.  Here,  leaning  against  this  pilaster,  she  was  rapt  in  frequent 
ecstasies ;  wherefore  this  pilaster  has  ever  since  been  potent  against 
the  infernal  furies,  delivering  many  possessed  of  devils."  Here  Jesus 
Christ  appeared  before  her  in  the  figure  of  a  beggar,  and  she  gave 
him  alms,  and  he  promised  to  own  her  before  all  the  world  at  the 
Judgment  Day.  She  gave  him  her  robe,  and  he  gave  her  an  invisi- 
ble garment  which  forever  after  kept  her  from  the  cold.  Here  once 
he  gave  her  the  Host  himself,  and  her  confessor,  missing  it,  was  in 
great  terror  till  she  told  him.  Here  the  Lord  took  his  own  heart  from 
his  breast  and  put  it  into  hers. 

You  may  also  see  in  this  chapel,  framed  and  covered  with  a  grat- 
ing in  the  floor,  a  piece  of  the  original  pavement  on  which  Christ 
stood  and  walked.  The  whole  church  is  full  of  memories  of  her; 
and  there  is  another  chapel  in  it,  painted  in  fresco  by  Sodoma  with 
her  deeds  and  miracles,  which  in  its  kind  is  almost  incomparably 
rich  and  beautiful.  It  is  the  painter's  most  admirable  and  admired 
work,  in  which  his  genius  ranges  from  the  wretch  decapitated  in  the 
bottom  of  the  picture  to  the  soul  borne  instantly  aloft  by  two  angels 
in  response  to  St.  Catherine's  prayers.  They  had  as  much  nerve  as 
faith  in  those  days,  and  the  painter  has  studied  the  horror  with  the 
same  conscience  as  the  glory.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how 
much  he  believed  of  what  he  was  painting,  —  just  as  it  would  be 
now  to  know  how  much  I  believe  of  what  I  am  writing :  probably 
neither  of  us  could  say. 

What  impresses  St.  Catherine  so  vividly  upon  the  fancy  that  has 
once  begun  to  concern  itself  with  her  is  the  double  character  of  her 
greatness.  She  was  not  merely  an  ecstatic  nun :  she  was  a  woman 
of  extraordinary  political  sagacity,  and  so  great  a  power  among  states- 
men and  princes  that  she  alone  could  put  an  end  to  the  long  exile  of 
the  popes  at  Avignon,  and  bring  them  back  to  Rome.  She  failed  to 
pacify  her  country  because,  as  the  Sienese  historian  Buonsignore  con- 
fesses, "the  germs  of  the  evil  were  planted  so  deeply  that  it  was 
t  beyond  human  power  to  uproot  them."  But,  nevertheless,  "  she 
rendered  herself  forever  famous  by  her   civic  virtues,"    her   active 


166  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

beneficence,  her  perpetual  striving  for  the  good  of  others,  all  and 
singly ;  and  even  so  furious  a  free-thinker  as  the  author  of  my  "  New- 
Guide  to  Siena "  thinks  that,  setting  aside  the  marvels  of  legend, 
she  has  a  right  to  the  reverence  of  posterity,  the  veneration  of  her 
fellow-citizens.  "  St.  Catherine,  an  honor  to  humanity,  is  also  a  lite- 
rary celebrity :  the  golden  purity  of  her  diction,  the  sympathetic  and 
affectionate  simplicity  of  expression  in  her  letters,  still  arouse  the 
admiration  of  the  most  illustrious  writers.  With  the  potency  of  her 
prodigious  genius,  the  virgin  stainlessness  of  her  life,  and  her  great 
heart  warm  with  love  of  country  and  magnanimous  desires,  inspired 
by  a  sublime  ideal  even  in  her  mysticism,  she,  born  of  the  people, 
meek  child  of  Giacomo  the  dyer,  lifted  herself  to  the  summit  of 
religious  and  political  grandeur.  .  .  .  With  an  overflowing  eloquence 
and  generous  indignation  she  stigmatized  the  crimes,  the  vices,  the 
ambition  of  the  popes,  their  temporal  power,  and  the  scandalous 
schism  of  the  Eoman  Church." 

In  the  Communal  Library  at  Siena  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
many  of  St.  Catherine's  letters  in  the  MS.  in  which  they  were  dic- 
tated :  she  was  not  a  scholar  like  the  great  Socinus,  whose  letters  I 
also  saw,  and  she  could  not  even  write. 


XIII. 

A  hundred  years  after  St.  Catherine's  death  there  was  born  in 
the  same  "  noble  Ward  of  the  Goose "  one  of  the  most  famous  and 
eloquent  of  Italian  reformers,  the  Bernardino  Ochino,  whose  name 
commemorates  that  of  his  native  Contrada  dell'  Oca.  He  became  a 
Franciscan,  and  through  the  austerity  of  his  life,  the  beauty  of  his 
character,  and  the  wonder  of  his  eloquence  he  became  the  General  of 
his  Order  in  Italy,  and  then  he  became  a  Protestant.  "  His  words 
could  move  stones  to  tears,"  said  Charles  V. ;  and  when  he  preached 
in  Siena,  no  space  was  large  enough  for  his  audience  except  the  great 
piazza  before  the  Public  Palace,  which  was  thronged  even  to  the 
house-tops.  Ochino  escaped  by  flight  the  death  that  overtook  his 
sometime  fellow-denizen  of  Siena,  Aonio  Paleario,  whose  book,  "II 


PAN  FORTE  Dl   SIENA.  167 

Beneficio  di  Cristo,"  was  very  famous  in  its  time  and  potent  for  re- 
form throughout  Italy.  In  that  doughty  little  Siena,  in  fact,  there 
has  been  almost  as  much  hard  thinking  as  hard  fighting,  and  what 
with  Ochino  and  Paleario,  with  Socinus  and  Bandini,  the  Beforma- 
tion,  Rationalism,  and  Free  Trade  may  be  said  almost  to  have  been 
invented  in  the  city  which  gave  one  of  the  loveliest  and  sublimest 
saints  to  the  Church.  Let  us  not  forget,  either,  that  brave  arch- 
bishop of  Siena,  Ascanio  Piccolomini,  one  of  the  ancient  family  which 
gave  two  popes  to  Borne,  and  which  in  this  archbishop  had  the 
heart  to  defy  the  Inquisition  and  welcome  Galileo  to  the  protection 
of  an  inviolable  roof. 

XIV. 

It  is  so  little  way  off  from  Fonte  Branda  and  St.  Catherine's  house, 
that  I  do  not  know  but  the  great  cathedral  of  Siena  may  also  be  in 
the  "  Ward  of  the  Goose  ; "  but  I  confess  that  I  did  not  think  of  this 
when  I  stood  before  that  wondrous  work. 

There  are  a  few  things  in  this  world  about  whose  grandeur  one 
may  keep  silent  with  dignity  and  advantage,  as  St.  Mark's,  for  in- 
stance, and  Notre  Dame,  and  Giotto's  Tower,  and  the  curve  of  the 
Arno  at  Pisa,  and  Niagara,  and  the  cathedral  at  Siena.  I  am  not 
sure  that  one  has  not  here  more  authority  for  holding  his  peace  than 
before  any  of  the  others.  Let  the  architecture  go,  then :  the  inex- 
haustible treasure  of  the  sculptured  marbles,  the  ecstasy  of  Gothic 
invention,  the  splendor  of  the  mosaics,  the  quaintness,  the  grotesque- 
ness,  the  magnificence  of  the  design  and  the  detail.  The  photographs 
do  well  enough  in  suggestion  for  such  as  have  not  seen  the  church, 
but  these  will  never  have  the  full  sense  of  it  which  only  long  look- 
ing and  coming  again  and  again  can  impart.  One  or  two  facts,  how- 
ever, may  be  imagined,  and  the  reader  may  fancy  the  cathedral  set 
on  the  crest  of  the  noble  height  to  which  Siena  clings,  and  from 
which  the  streets  and  houses  drop  all  round  from  the  narrow  level 
expressed  in  the  magnificent  stretch  of  that  straight  line  with  which 
the  cathedral-roof  delights  the  eye  from  every  distance.  It  has  a  pre- 
eminence which  seems  to  me  unapproached,  and  this  structure,  which 


108 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


only  partially  realizes  the  vast  design  of  its  founders,  impresses  one 
with  the  courage  even  more  than  the  piety  of  the  little  republic,  now 
so  utterly  extinct.  What  a  force  was  in  men's  hearts  in  those  days  ! 
"What  a  love  of  beauty  must  have  exalted  the  whole  community ! 

The  Sienese  were  at  the  height  of  their  work  on  the  great  cathedral 
when  the  great  pestilence  smote  them,  and  broke  them  forever,  leav- 
ing them  a  feeble  phantom  of  their  past  glory  and  prosperity.  "  The 
infection,"  says  Buonsignore,  "  spread  not  only  from  the  sick,  but  from 
everything  they  touched,  and  the  terror  was  such  that  selfish  frenzy 
mounted  to  the  wildest  excess ;  not  only  did  neighbor  abandon 
neighbor,  friend  forsake  friend,  but  the  wife  her  husband,  parents 


SIENESE   GARDENS. 


their  children.  In  the  general  fear,  all  noble  and  endearing  feel- 
ings were  hushed.  .  .  .  Such  was  the  helplessness  into  which  the 
inhabitants  lapsed  that  the  stench  exhaling  from  the  wretched  huts 
of  the  poor  was  the  sole  signal  of  death  within.  The  dead  were 
buried  by  a  few  generous  persons  whom  an  angelic  pity  moved  to 


UP    AND    DOWN    IN    SIENA. 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA. 


171 


the  duty  :  their  appeal  was, '  Help  to  carry  this  body  to  the  grave, 
that  when  we  die  others  may  bear  us  thither ! '  The  proportion  of 
the  dead  to  the  sick  was  frightful ;  out  of  every  five  seized  by  the 
plague,  scarcely  one  survived.  Angelo  di  Tura  tells  us  that  at  Siena, 
in  the  months  of  May,  June,  July,  and  August  of  the  year  1348, 
the  pest  carried  off  eighty  thousand  persons.  ...  A  hundred  noble 
familes  were  extinguished."  Throughout  Italy,  "  three  fourths  of  the 
population  perished.  The  cities,  lately  flourishing,  busy,  industrious, 
full  of  life,  had  become  squalid,  deserted,  bereft  of  the  activity  which 
promotes  grandeur.  In  Siena  the  region  of  Fonte  Branda  was  largely 
saved  from  the  infection  by  the  odor  of  its  tanneries.  Other  quarters, 
empty  and  forsaken,  were  set  on  fire  after  the  plague  ceased,  and  the 
waste  areas  where  they  stood  became  the  fields  and  gardens  we  now 


FIELDS   WITHIN   THE   WALLS. 


see  within  the  walls.  .  .  .  The  work  on  the  cathedral,  which  had 
gone  forward  for  ten  years,  was  suspended,  .  .  .  and  when  resumed, 
it  was  upon  a  scale  adjusted  to  the  diminished  wealth  of  the  city, 
and  the  plan  was  restricted  to  the  dimensions  which  we  now  behold. 
.  .  .  And  if  the  fancy  contemplates  the  grandeur  of  the  original 


172  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

project,  divining  it  from  the  vestiges  of  the  walls  and  the  columns 
remaining  imperfect,  but  still  preserved  in  good  condition,  it  must 
be  owned  that  the  republic  disposed  of  resources  of  which  we  can 
form  no  conception ;  and  we  must  rest  astounded  that  a  little  state, 
embroiled  in  perpetual  wars  with  its  neighbors,  and  in  the  midst  of 
incessant  party  strife,  should  undertake  the  completion  of  a  work 
worthy  of  the  greatest  and  most  powerful  nations." 

"  When  a  man,"  says  Mr.  Addison,  writing  from  Siena  in  the  spirit 
of  the  genteel  age  which  he  was  an  ornament  of,  "  sees  the  prodigious 
pains  and  expense  that  our  forefathers  have  been  at  in  these  bar- 
barous buildings,  one  cannot  but  fancy  to  himself  what  miracles  of 
architecture  they  would  have  left  us  had  they  only  been  instructed 
in  the  right  way;  for  when  the  devotion  of  those  ages  was  much 
warmer  than  it  is  at  present,  and  the  riches  of  the  people  much 
more  at  the  disposal  of  the  priests,  there  was  so  much  money  con- 
sumed on  these  Gothic  cathedrals  as  would  have  finished  a  greater 
variety  of  noble  buildings  than  have  been  raised  either  before  or 
since  that  time."  And  describing  this  wonderful  cathedral  of  Siena 
in  detail,  he  says  that  "  nothing  in  the  world  can  make  a  prettier 
show  to  those  who  prefer  false  beauties  and  affected  ornaments  to 
a  noble  and  majestic  simplicity." 

The  time  will  no  doubt  come  again  when  we  shall  prefer  "  noble 
and  majestic  simplicity,"  as  Mr.  Addison  did;  and  I  for  one  shall 
not  make  myself  the  mock  of  it  by  confessing  how  much  better  I 
now  like  "false  beauties  and  affected  ornaments."  In  fact,  I  am 
willing  to  make  a  little  interest  with  it  by  admitting  that  the  Tuscan 
fashion  of  alternate  courses  of  black  and  white  marble  in  architecture 
robs  the  interior  of  the  cathedral  of  all  repose,  and  that  nowhere  else 
does  the  godless  joke  which  nicknamed  a  New  York  temple  "the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Zebra  "  insist  upon  itself  so  much.  But  if  my 
business  were  iconoclasm,  I  should  much  rather  smash  the  rococo 
apostolic  statues  which  Mr.  Addison  doubtless  admired,  perching  on 
their  brackets  at  the  base  of  the  variegated  pillars  ;  and  I  suspect  they 
are  greatly  to  blame  for  the  distraction  which  the  visitor  feels  before 
he  loses  himself  in  the  inexhaustibly  beautiful  and  delightful  detail. 


PAN  FORTE  DI   SIENA.  173 

Shall  I  attempt  to  describe  this  ?  Not  I !  Get  photographs,  get 
prints,  dear  reader,  or  go  see  for  yourself !  Otherwise,  trust  me  that 
if  we  had  a  tithe  of  that  lavish  loveliness  in  one  structure  in  America, 
the  richness  of  that  one  would  impoverish  the  effect  of  all  the  other 
buildings  on  the  continent.  I  say  this,  not  with  the  hope  of  impart- 
ing an  idea  of  the  beauty,  which  words  cannot,  but  to  give  some 
notion  of  the  wealth  poured  out  upon  this  mere  fragment  of  what 
was  meant  to  be  the  cathedral  of  Siena,  and  to  help  the  reader  con- 
ceive not  only  of  the  piety  of  the  age,  but  of  the  love  of  art  then 
universally  spread  among  the  Italians. 

The  day  was  abominably  cold,  of  course,  —  it  had  been  snowing 
that  morning,  —  when  we  first  visited  the  church,  and  I  was  lurking 
about  with  my  skull-cap  on,  my  teeth  chattering,  and  my  hands 
benumbing  in  my  pockets,  when  the  little  valet  cle  place  who  had 
helped  us  not  find  a  lodging  espied  us  and  leaped  joyously  upon  us, 
and  ran  us  hither  and  thither  so  proudly  and  loudly  that  one  of  the 
priests  had  to  come  and  snub  him  back  to  quiet  and  decorum.  I  do 
not  know  whether  this  was  really  in  the  interest  of  decency,  or  of 
the  succession  of  sacristans  who,  when  the  valet  had  been  retired  to 
the  front  door,  took  possession  of  us,  and  lifted  the  planking  which 
preserves  the  famous  engraved  pavement,  and  showed  us  the  wonder- 
ful pulpit  and  the  rich  chapels,  and  finally  the  library  all  frescoed 
by  Pinturicchio  with  scenes  from  the  lives  of  the  two  Sienese  Picco- 
lomini  who  were  Popes  Pius  II.  and  III. 

This  multiplicity  of  sacristans  suffered  us  to  omit  nothing,  and  one 
of  them  hastened  to  point  out  the  two  Hag-poles  fastened  to  the  two 
pillars  nearest  the  high  altar,  which  are  said  to  be  those  of  the  great 
War  Car  of  the  Florentines,  captured  by  the  Sienese  at  Montaperto 
in  1260.  "How,"  says  my  "  New  Guide,"  "how  on  earth,  the 
stranger  will  ask,  do  we  find  here  in  the  house  of  God,  who  shed 
his  blood  for  all  mankind,  here  in  the  temple  consecrated  to  Mary, 
mother  of  every  sweet  affection,  these  two  records  of  a  terrible  car- 
nage between  brothers,  sons  of  the  same  country  ?  Does  it  not  seem 
as  if  these  relics  from  the  field  of  battle  stand  here  to  render  Divinity 
accomplice  of  the  rage  and  hate  and  vengeance  of  men  ?     We  know 


174 


TUSCAN   CITIES. 


not  how  to  answer  this  question ;  we  must  even  add  that  the  crucifix 
not  far  from  the  poles,  in  the  chapel  on  the  left  of  the  transept,  was 

borne  by  the  Sienese,  trusting  for  victory 
in  the  favor  of  God,  upon  the  field  of 
Montaperto." 

I  make  haste  to  say  that  I  was  not  a 
stranger  disposed  to  perplex  my  "New 
Guide"  with  any  such  question,  and  that 
nothing  I  saw  in  the  cathedral  gave  me 
so  much  satisfaction  as  these  flag-poles. 
Ghibelline  and  Sienese  as  I  had  become 
as  soon  as  I  turned  my  back  on  Guelphic 
Florence,  I  exulted  in  these  trophies  of 
Montaperto  with  a  joy  which  nothing 
matched  except  the  pleasure  I  had  in  view- 
ing the  fur-lined  canopy  of  the  War  Car, 
which  is  preserved  in  the  Opera  del  Duomo, 
and  from  which  the  custodian  bestowed 
upon  my  devotion  certain  small  tufts  of  the 
fur.  I  have  no  question  but  this  canopy 
and  the  flag-poles  are  equally  genuine,  and 
I  counsel  the  reader  by  all  means  to  see 
them. 
There  are  many  other  objects  to  be  seen  in  the  curious  museum  of 
antique  and  mediaeval  art  called  the  Opera  del  Duomo,  especially 
the  original  sculptures  of  the  Fonte  Gaia ;  but  the  place  is  chiefly 
interesting  as  the  outline,  the  colossal  sketch  in  sculptured  marble, 
of  the  cathedral  as  it  was  projected.  The  present  structure  rises 
amid  the  halting  fragments  of  the  mediaeval  edifice,  which  it  has 
included  in  itself,  without  exceeding  their  extent ;  and  from  the  roof 
there  is  an  ineffable  prospect  of  the  city  and  the  country,  from  which 
one  turns  again  in  still  greater  wonder  to  the  church  itself. 

I  had  an  even  deeper  sense  of  its  vastness,  —  the  least  marvellous 
of  its  facts, — and  a  renewed  sense  of  the  domestication  of  the  Italian 
churches,  when  I  went  one  morning  to  hear  a  Florentine  monk, 


A   MEDIAEVAL   SIENESE. 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA. 


175 


famed  for  his  eloquence,  preach  in  the  cathedral.  An  oblong  canopy 
of  coarse  gray  canvas  had  been  stretched  overhead  in  part  of  the 
great  nave,  to  keep  his  voice  from  losing  itself  in  the  space  around 
and  above.  The  monk,  from  a  pulpit  built  against  one  of  the  pillars, 
faced  a  dais,  across  the  nave,  where  the  archbishop  sat  in  his  chair 
to  listen,  and  the  planked  floor  between  them  was  thronged  with 
people  sitting  and  standing,  who  came  and  went,  as  if  at  home,  with 
a  continued  clapping  of  feet  and  banging  of  doors.  All  the  time 
service  was  going  on  at  several  side-altars,  where  squads  of  wor- 
shippers were  kneeling,  indifferent 
alike  to  one  another  and  to  the 
sermon  of  the  monk.  Some  of  his 
listeners,  however,  wore  a  look  of  in- 
tense interest,  and  I  myself  was  not 
without  concern  in  his  discourse,  for 
I  perceived  that  it  was  all  in  honor 
and  compassion  of  the  captive  of  the 
Vatican,  and  fall  of  innuendo  for  the 
national  government.  It  gave  me 
some  notion  of  the  difficulties  with 
which  that  government  has  to  con- 
tend, and   impressed   me   anew  with 

its  admirable  patience  and  forbearance.  Italy  is  unified,  but  many 
interests,  prejudices,  and  ambitions  are  still  at  war  within  her 
unity. 

XV. 

One  night  we  of  the  Pension  T.  made  a  sentimental  pilgrimage  to 
the  cathedral,  to  see  it  by  moonlight.  The  moon  was  not  so  prompt 
as  we,  and  at  first  we  only  had  it  on  the  baptistery  and  the  campa- 
nile, —  a  campanile  to  make  one  almost  forget  the  Tower  of  Giotto. 
But  before  we  came  away  one  corner  of  the  facade  had  caught  the 
light,  and  hung  richly  bathed,  tenderly  etherealized  in  it.  What 
was  gold,  what  was  marble  before,  seemed  transmuted  to  the  lumi- 
nous  substance  of  the  moonlight  itself,  and  rested  there  like  some 


ONE   OP  THE   LISTENERS. 


176  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

translucent  cloud  that  "  stooped  from  heaven  and  took  the  shape  " 
of  clustered  arch  and  finial. 

On  the  way  home  we  passed  the  open  portal  of  a  palace,  and  made 
ourselves  the  guests  of  its  noble  court,  now  poured  full  of  the  moon, 
and  dimly  lighted  by  an  exquisite  lantern  of  beaten  iron,  which  hung 
near  a  massive  pillar  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase.  The  pillar  divided 
the  staircase,  and  lost  its  branchy  top  in  the  vault  overhead ;  and 
there  was  something  so  consciously  noble  and  dignified  in  the  whole 
architectural  presence  that  I  should  have  been  surprised  to  find  that 
we  had  not  stumbled  upon  an  historic  edifice.  It  proved  to  be  the 
ancient  palace  of  the  Captain  of  the  People,  —  and  I  will  thank  the 
reader  to  imagine  me  a  finer  name  than  Capitano  del  Popolo  for 
the  head  of  such  a  democracy  as  Siena,  whose  earliest  government, 
according  to  Alessandro  Sozzini,  was  popular,  after  the  Swiss  fashion. 
Now  the  palace  is  the  residence  and  property  of  the  Grattanelli  fam- 
ily, who  have  restored  it  and  preserved  it  in  the  medieval  spirit,  so 
that  I  suppose  it  is,  upon  the  whole,  the  best  realization  of  a  phase 
of  the  past  which  one  can  see.  The  present  Count  Grattanelli — who 
may  be  rather  a  marquis  or  a  prince,  but  who  is  certainly  a  gentle- 
man of  enlightened  taste,  and  of  a  due  sense  of  his  Siena  —  keeps  an 
apartment  of  the  palace  open  to  the  public,  with  certain  of  the 
rooms  in  the  original  state,  and  store  of  armor  and  weapons  in  which 
the  consequence  of  the  old  Captains  of  the  People  fitly  masquerades. 
One  must  notice  the  beautiful  doors  of  inlaid  wood  in  this  apartment, 
which  are  of  the  count's  or  marquis's  or  prince's  own  design;  and 
not  fail  of  two  or  three  ceilings  frescoed  in  dark  colors,  in  dense,  close 
designs  and  small  panels,  after  what  seems  a  fashion  peculiar  to 
Siena. 

Now  that  I  am  in  Boston,  where  there  are  so  few  private  palaces 
open  to  the  public,  I  wonder  that  I  did  not  visit  more  of  them  in 
Siena ;  but  I  find  no  record  of  any  such  visits  but  this  one  in  my 
note-books.  It  was  not  for  want  of  inscriptional  provocation  to 
penetrate  interiors  that  I  failed  to  do  so.  They  are  tableted  in  Siena 
beyond  almost  anything  I  have  seen.  The  villa  outside  the  gate 
where  the  poet  Manzoni  once  visited  his  daughter  records  the  fact 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  177 

for  the  passing  stranger ;  on  the  way  to  the  station  a  house  boasts 
that  within  it  the  dramatist  Pietro  Cossa,  being  there  "  the  guest  of 
his  adored  mother,"  wrote  his  Cecilia  and  the  second  act  of  his  Sylla ; 
in  a  palace  near  that  of  Socinus  you  are  notified  that  Alfieri  wrote 
several  of  his  tragedies ;  and  another  proclaims  that  he  frequented  it 
"  holding  dear  the  friendship  "  of  the  lady  of  the  house  !  In  spite  of 
all  this,  I  can  remember  only  having  got  so  far  as  the  vestibule  and 
staircase  —  lovely  and  grand  they  were,  too  —  of  one  of  those  noble 
Gothic  palaces  in  Via  Cavour ;  I  was  deterred  from  going  farther  by 
learning  it  was  not  the  day  when  uninvited  guests  were  received.  I 
always  kept  in  mind,  moreover,  the  Palazzo  Tolomei  for  the  sake  of 
that  dear  and  fair  lady  who  besought  the  traveller  through  pur- 
gatory — 

"  Ricorditi  di  me,  che  son  la  Pia ; 
Siena  mi  fe,  disfecemi  Maremma,"  — 

and  who  was  of  the  ancient  name  still  surviving  in  Siena.  Some  say 
that  her  husband  carried  her  to  die  of  malaria  in  the  marshes  of  the 
Maremma ;  some,  that  he  killed  her  with  his  dagger ;  others,  that  he 
made  his  servants  throw  her  from  the  window  of  his  castle;  and  none 
are  certain  whether  or  no  he  had  reason  to  murder  her,  —  they  used 
to  think  there  could  be  a  reason  for  murdering  wives  in  his  day ; 
even  the  good  Gigli,  of  the  Diario  Senese,  speaks  of  that  "  giusto 
motivo "  Messer  Nello  may  possibly  have  had.  What  is  certain  is 
that  Pia  was  the  most  beautiful  woman  in  Italy ;  and  what  is  still 
more  certain  is  that  she  was  not  a  Tolomei  at  all,  but  only  the  widow 
of  a  Tolomei.  Perhaps  it  was  prescience  of  this  fact  that  kept  me 
from  visiting  the  Tolomei  palace  for  her  sake.  At  any  rate,  I  did 
not  visit  it,  though  I  often  stopped  in  the  street  before  it,  and  dedi- 
cated a  mistaken  sigh  to  the  poor  lady  who  was  only  a  Tolomei  by 
marriage. 

There  were  several  other  ladies  of  Siena,  in  past  ages,  who  inter- 
ested me.  Such  an  one  was  the  exemplary  Onorata  de'  Principi 
Orsini,  one  of  the  four  hundred  Sienese  noblewomen  who  went  out  to 
meet  the  Emperor  Frederick  III.  in  1341,  when  he  came  to  Siena  to 

12 


178  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

espouse  Leonora,  Infanta  of  Portugal ;  a  column  near  Porta  Camollia 
still  commemorates  the  exact  spot  where  the  Infanta  stood  to  receive 
him.  On  this  occasion  the  fair  Onorata  was,  to  the  thinking  of  some 
of  the  other  ladies,  too  simply  dressed ;  but  she  defended  herself 
against  their  censure,  affirming  that  the  "  Sienese  gentlewomen  should 
make  a  pomp  of  nothing  but  their  modesty,  since  in  other  displays 
and  feminine  adornments  the  matrons  of  other  and  richer  cities  could 
easily  surpass  them."  And  at  a  ball  that  night,  being  asked  who 
was  the  handsomest  gentleman  present,  she  answered  that  she  saw 
no  one  but  her  husband  there.  Is  the  estimable  Onorata  a  trifle  too 
sage  for  the  reader's  sympathy  ?  Let  him  turn  then  to  the  Lady 
Battista  Berti,  wife  of  Achille  Petrucci,  who,  at  another  ball  in  honor 
of  the  Emperor,  spoke  Latin  with  him  so  elegantly  and  with  such 
spirit  that  he  embraced  her,  and  created  her  countess,  and  begged 
her  to  ask  some  grace  of  him  ;  upon  which  this  learned  creature, 
instead  of  requesting  the  Emperor  to  found  a  free  public  library, 
besought  him  to  have  her  exempted  from  the  existing  law  which 
prohibited  the  wearing  of  jewels  and  brocade  dresses  in  Siena.  The 
careful  Gigli  would  have  us  think  that  by  this  reply  Lady  Battista 
lost  all  the  credit  which  her  Latinity  had  won  her ;  but  it  appears  to 
me  that  both  of  these  ladies  knew  very  well  what  they  were  about, 
and  each  in  her  way  perceived  that  the  Emperor  could  appreciate  a 
delicate  stroke  of  humor  as  well  as  another.  If  there  were  time,  and 
not  so  many  questions  of  our  own  day  pressing,  I  should  like  to  in- 
quire into  all  the  imaginable  facts  of  these  cases ;  and  I  commend 
them  to  the  reader,  whose  fancy  cannot  be  so  hard-worked  as  mine. 

The  great  siege  of  Siena  by  the  Florentines  and  Imperialists  in 
1554-55  called  forth  high  civic  virtues  in  the  Sienese  women,  who  not 
only  shared  all  the  hardships  and  privations  of  the  men,  but  often 
their  labors,  their  dangers,  and  their  battles.  "  Never,  Sienese  ladies," 
gallantly  exclaimed  the  brave  Blaise  de  Montluc,  Marshal  of  France, 
who  commanded  the  forces  of  the  Most  Christian  Kins?  in  defence  of 
the  city,  and  who  treats  of  the  siege  in  his  Commentaries,  "  never 
shall  I  fail  to  immortalize  your  name  so  long  as  the  book  of  Montluc 
shall  live ;  for  in  truth  you  are  worthy  of  immortal  praise,  if  ever 


AN    ARCHWAY    IN    SIENA. 


PAN  FORTE  DI  SIENA.  181 

women  were  so.  As  soon  as  the  people  took  the  noble  resolution  of 
defending  their  liberty,  the  ladies  of  the  city  of  Siena  divided  them- 
selves into  three  companies:  the  first  was  led  by  Lady  Forteguerra, 
who  was  dressed  in  violet,  and  all  those  who  followed  her  likewise, 
having  her  accoutrement  in  the  fashion  of  a  nymph,  short,  and  show- 
ing the  buskin ;  the  second  by  Lady  Piccolomini,  dressed  in  rose- 
colored  satin,  and  her  troops  in  the  same  livery ;  the  third  by  Lady 
Livia  Fausta,  dressed  in  white,  as  was  also  all  her  following,  and 
bearing  a  white  ensign.  On  their  flags  they  had  some  pretty  devices  ; 
I  would  give  a  good  deal  if  I  could  remember  them.  These  three 
squadrons  were  composed  of  three  thousand  ladies,  —  gentlewomen  or 
citizenesses.  Their  arms  were  pickaxes,  shovels,  baskets,  and  fas- 
cines ;  and  thus  equipped,  they  mustered  and  set  to  work  on  the 
fortifications.  Monsieur  de  Termes,  who  has  frequently  told  me  about 
it  (for  I  had  not  then  arrived),  has  assured  me  that  he  never  saw 
in  his  life  anything  so  pretty  as  that.  I  saw  the  flags  afterwards. 
They  had  made  a  song  in  honor  of  France,  and  they  sang  it  in  going 
to  the  fortifications.  I  would  give  the  best  horse  I  have  if  I  could 
have  been  there.  And  since  I  am  upon  the  honor  of  these  ladies, 
I  wish  those  who  come  after  us  to  admire  the  courage  of  a  young 
Sienese  girl,  who,  although  she  was  of  poor  condition,  still  deserves 
to  be  placed  in  the  first  rank.  I  had  issued  an  order  when  I  was 
chosen  Dictator  that  nobody,  on  pain  of  being  punished,  should  fail 
to  go  on  guard  in  his  turn.  This  girl,  seeing  her  brother,  whose  turn 
it  was,  unable  to  go,  takes  his  morion,  which  she  puts  on  her  head, 
his  shoes,  his  buffalo-gorget ;  and  with  his  halberd  on  her  shoulders, 
goes  off  with  the  corps  de  garde  in  this  guise,  passing,  when  the  roll  is 
called,  under  the  name  of  her  brother,  and  stands  sentinel  in  his 
place,  without  being  known  till  morning.  She  was  brought  home  in 
triumph.     That  afternoon  Signor  Cornelio  showed  her  to  me." 

I  am  sorry  that  concerning  the  present  ladies  of  Siena  I  know 
nothing  except  by  the  scantiest  hearsay.  My  chief  knowledge  of 
them,  indeed,  centres  in  the  story  of  one  of  the  Borghesi  there,  who 
hold  themselves  so  very  much  higher  than  the  Borghesi  of  Rome. 
She  stopped  fanning  herself  a  moment  while  some  one  spoke  of  them. 


182  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

"  Oh,  yes ;  I  have  heard  that  a  branch  of  our  family  went  to  Eome. 
But  I  know  nothing  about  them." 

What  glimpse  we  caught  of  Sienese  society  was  at  the  theatre,  — 
the  lovely  little  theatre  of  the  Accademia  dei  Eozzi.  This  is  one  of 
the  famous  literary  academies  of  Italy ;  it  was  founded  in  the  time 
of  Leo  X.,  and  was  then  composed  entirely  of  workingmen,  who  con- 
fessed their  unpolished  origin  in  their  title  ;  afterwards  the  Academies 
of  the  Wrapped-up,  the  Twisted,  and  the  Insipid  (such  was  the  fan- 
tastic humor  of  the  prevailing  nomenclature)  united  with  these  Eude 
Men,  and  their  academy  finally  became  the  most  polite  in  Siena. 
Their  theatre  still  enjoys  a  national  fame,  none  but  the  best  com- 
panies being  admitted  to  its  stage.  We  saw  there  the  Eossi  company 
of  Turin,  —  the  best  players  by  all  odds,  after  the  great  Florentine 
Stenterello,  whom  I  saw  in  Italy.  Commendatore  Eossi's  is  an 
exquisite  comic  talent,  —  the  most  delicately  amusing,  the  most 
subtly  refined.  In  a  comedy  of  Goldoni's  ("A  Curious  Accident") 
which  he  gave,  he  was  able  to  set  the  house  in  an  uproar  by  simply 
letting  a  series  of  feelings  pass  over  his  face,  in  expression  of  the 
conceited,  wilful  old  comedy-father's  progress  from  facetious  satis- 
faction in  the  elopement  of  his  neighbor's  daughter  to  a  realization 
of  the  fact  that  it  was  his  own  daughter  who  had  run  away.  Eossi, 
who  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  tragedian  of  his  name,  is  the 
first  comedian  who  has  ever  been  knighted  in  Italy,  the  theory  being 
that  since  a  comic  actor  might  receive  a  blow  which  the  exigency  of 
the  play  forbade  him  to  resent,  he  was  unfit  for  knighthood.  King 
Humbert  seems  somehow  to  have  got  over  this  prodigious  obstacle. 

The  theatre  was  always  filled,  and  between  the  acts  there  was 
much  drama  in  the  boxes,  where  the  gentlemen  went  and  came, 
making  their  compliments  to  the  ladies,  in  the  old  Italian  fashion. 
It  looked  very  easy  and  pleasant ;  and  I  wish  Count  Nerli,  whose 
box  we  had  hired  one  evening  when  he  sent  the  key  to  the  ticket- 
office  to  be  let,  had  been  there  to  tell  us  sometliing  of  the  people  in 
the  others.  I  wish,  in  fact,  that  we  might  have  known  something 
of  the  count  himself,  whom,  as  it  is,  I  know  only  by  the  title  boldly 
lettered  on  his  box-door.     The  acquaintance  was  slight,  but  very 


PANFORTE   DI  SIENA. 


183 


agreeable.  Before  the  evening  was  out  I  had  imagined  him  in  a 
dozen  figures  and  characters ;  and  I  still  feel  that  I  came  very  near 
knowing  a  Sienese  count.  Some  English  people,  who  became  English 
friends,  in  our  pension,  had  letters  which  took  them  into  society,  and 
they  reported  it  very  charming.  Indeed,  I  heard  at  Florence,  from 
others  who  knew  it 
well,  that  it  was  pleas- 
antly characterized  by 
the  number  of  culti- 
vated people  connected 
with  the  ancient  uni- 
versity of  Siena. 
Again,  I  heard  that 
here,  and  elsewhere  in 
Italy,  husbands  neglect 
their  wives,  and  leave 
them  dismal  at  home, 
while  they  go  out  to 

spend   their   evenings   at   the   clubs   and   cafes.     Who   knows  ?     I 
will  not  even  pretend  to  do  so,  though  the  temptation  is  great. 

A  curious  phase  of  the  social  life  in  another  direction  appeared  in 
the  notice  which  I  found  posted  one  day  on  the  door  of  the  church 
of  San  Cristoforo,  inviting  the  poor  girls  of  the  parish  to  a  competi- 
tive examination  for  the  wedding-portions  to  be  supplied  to  the  most 
deserving  from  an  ancient  fund.  They  were  advised  that  they  must 
appear  on  some  Sunday  during  Lent  before  the  parish  priest,  with 
a  petition  certifying  to  these  facts :  — 


HURRYING   HOME. 


"I.   Poverty. 
"  II.  Good  morals. 
"  III.  Regular  attendance  at  church. 
"  IV.  Residence  of  six  months  in  the  parish. 
"  V.  Age  between  18  and  30  years. 

"  N.  B.     A  girl  who  has  won  a  dower  in  this  or  any  other  parish  cannot 
compete  " 


184  TUSCAN  CITIES. 


XVI. 


The  churches  are  very  rich  in  paintings  of  the  Sienese  school,  and 
the  gallery  of  the  Belle  Arti,  though  small,  is  extremely  interesting. 
Upon  the  whole,  I  do  not  know  where  one  could  better  study  the 
progress  of  Italian  painting,  from  the  Byzantine  period  up  to  the 
great  moment  when  Sodoma  came  in  Siena.  Oddly  enough,  there 
was  a  very  lovely  little  Bellini  in  this  collection,  which,  with  a  small 
Veronese,  distinguished  itself  from  the  Tuscan  canvases,  by  the 
mellow  beauty  of  the  Venetian  coloring,  at  once.  It  is  worse  than 
useless  to  be  specific  about  pictures,  and  if  I  have  kept  any  general 
impression  of  the  Sienese  work,  it  concerns  the  superior  charm  of 
the  earlier  frescos,  especially  in  the  Public  Palace.  In  the  churches 
the  best  frescos  are  at  San  Domenico,  where  one  sees  the  exquisite 
chapel  of  St.  Catherine  painted  by  Sodoma,  which  I  have  already 
mentioned.  After  these  one  must  reckon  in  interest  the  histories 
with  which  Pinturicchio  has  covered  the  whole  library  of  the  cathe- 
dral, and  which  are  surpassingly  delightful  in  their  quaint  realism. 
For  the  rest,  I  have  a  vivid  memory  of  a  tendency  in  the  Sienese 
painters  to  the  more  horrific  facts  of  Scripture  and  legend ;  they 
were  terrible  fellows  for  the  Massacre  of  the  Innocents,  and  treated 
it  with  a  bloodier  carefulness  of  detail  than  I  remember  to  have 
noticed  in  any  other  school ;  the  most  sanguinary  of  these  slaughters 
is  in  the  Church  of  the  Servi.  But  there  is  something  wholesome 
and  human  even  in  the  most  butcherly  of  their  simple-minded  car- 
nages ;  it  is  where  the  allegorists  get  hold  of  horror  that  it  becomes 
loathsome,  as  in  that  choir  of  a  church,  which  I  have  forgotten  the 
name  of,  where  the  stalls  are  decorated  with  winged  death's  heads, 
the  pinions  shown  dropping  with  rottenness  and  decay  around  the 
skulls.  Yet  this  too  had  its  effectiveness :  it  said  what  some  people 
of  that  time  were  thinking ;  and  I  suppose  that  the  bust  of  a  lady 
in  a  fashionable  ruff,  with  a  book  in  her  hand,  simpering  at  the  bust 
of  her  husband  in  an  opposite  niche  in  San  Vigilio,  was  once  not  so 
amusing  as  it  now  looks.  I  am  rather  proud  of  discovering  her,  for 
I  found  her  after  I  had  been  distinctly  discouraged  from  exploring 


PAN  FORTE  DI  SIENA.  185 

the  church  by  the  old  woman  in  charge.  She  was  civil,  but  went 
back  eagerly  to  her  gossip  with  another  crone  there,  after  saying : 
"  The  pictures  in  the  roof  are  of  no  merit.  They  are  beautiful,  how- 
ever." I  liked  this  church,  which  was  near  our  pension,  because  it 
seemed  such  a  purely  little  neighborhood  affair;  and  I  must  have 
been  about  the  only  tourist  who  ever  looked  into  it. 

One  afternoon  we  drove  out  to  the  famous  convent  of  the  Osser- 
vanza,  which  was  suppressed  with  the  other  convents,  but  in  which 
the  piety  of  charitable  people  still  maintains  fifty  of  the  monks.  We 
passed  a  company  of  them,  young  and  old,  on  our  way,  bareheaded 
and  barefooted,  as  their  use  is,  and  looking  very  fit  in  the  landscape ; 
they  saluted  us  politely,  and  overtaking  us  in  the  porch  of  the  church, 
rang  up  the  sacristan  for  us,  and  then,  dropping  for  a  moment  on  one 
knee  before  the  door,  disappeared  into  the  convent.  The  chapel  is 
not  very  much  to  see,  though  there  is  a  most  beautiful  Delia  Eobbia 
there,  —  a  Madonna  and  St.  Thomas,  —  which  I  would  give  much  to 
see  now.  When  we  had  gone  the  round  of  the  different  objects,  our 
sacristan,  who  was  very  old  and  infirm,  and  visibly  foul  in  the  brown 
robes  which  are  charitable  to  so  much  dirt,  rose  from  the  last  altar 
before  which  he  had  knelt  with  a  rheumatic's  groans,  and  turning  to 
the  ladies  with  a  malicious  grin,  told  them  that  they  could  not  be 
admitted  to  the  cloisters,  though  the  gentlemen  could  come.  We 
followed  him  through  the  long,  dreary  galleries,  yawning  with  hun- 
dreds of  empty  cells,  and  a  sense  of  the  obsoleteness  of  the  whole 
affair  oppressed  me.  1  do  not  know  why  this  feeling  should  have 
been  heightened  by  the  smallness  of  the  gardened  court  enclosed  by 
the  cloisters,  or  by  the  tinkle  of  a  faint  old  piano  coming  from  some 
room  where  one  of  the  brothers  was  practising.  The  whole  place 
was  very  bare,  and  stared  with  fresh  whitewash ;  but  from  the  per- 
vading smell  1  feared  that  this  venerable  relic  of  the  past  was  not 
well  drained,  —  though  T  do  not  know  that  in  the  religious  ages  they 
valued  plumbing  greatly,  anywhere. 


186 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


XVII. 

In  this  and  other  drives  about  Siena  the  peculiar  character  of  the 
volcanic  landscape  made  itself  continually  felt.  There  is  a  desolation 
in  the  treeless  hills,  and  a  wildness  and  strangeness  in  their  forms, 
which  I  can  perhaps  Lest  suggest  by  repeating  that  they  have  been 
constantly  reproduced  by  the  Tuscan  painters  in  their  backgrounds, 
and  that  most  Judean  landscapes  in  their  pictures  are  faithful  studies 
of  such  naked  and  lonely  hills  as  billow  round  Siena.  The  soil  is 
red,  and  but  for  the  wine  and  oil  with  which  it  flows,  however  re- 
luctantly, I  should  say  that  it  must  be  poor.     Some  of  the  hills  look 


SIENESE   FARM-HOUSE, 


mere  heaps  of  clay,  such  as  mighty  geysers  might  have  cast  up  until 
at  last  they  hid  themselves  under  the  accumulation ;  and  this  seems 
to  be  the  nature  of  the  group  amidst  which  the  battle  of  Montaperto 
was  fought.  I  speak  from  a  very  remote  inspection,  for  though  we 
started  to  drive  there,  we  considered,  after  a  mile  or  two,  that  we 
had  no  real  interest  in  it  now,  either  as  Florentines  or  Sienese,  and 


OUTSIDE   A    SIENESE    GATK. 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  189 

contented  ourselves  with  a  look  at  the  Arbia,  which  the  battle  "  col- 
ored red,"  but  which  had  long  since  got  back  its  natural  complexion. 
This  stream  —  or  some  other  which  the  driver  passed  off  on  us  for 
it  —  flowed  down  through  the  uplands  over  which  we  drove,  with 
a  small  volume  that  seemed  quite  inadequate  to  slake  the  wide 
drought  of  the  landscape,  in  which,  except  for  the  cypresses  about 
the  villas,  no  tree  lifted  its  head.  There  were  not  even  olives ;  even 
the  vineyards  had  vanished.  The  fields  were  green  with  well-started 
wheat,  but  of  other  husbandry  there  was  scarcely  a  sign.  Yet  the 
peasants  whom  we  met  were  well  dressed  (to  be  sure  it  was  Sunday), 
and  there  was  that  air  of  comfort  about  the  farmsteads  which  is 
seldom  absent  in  Tuscany.  All  along  the  road  were  people  going  to 
vespers ;  and  these  people  were  often  girls,  young  and  pretty,  who, 
with  their  arms  about  one  another's  waists,  walked  three  and  four 
abreast,  the  wide  brims  of  their  straw  hats  lifting  round  their  faces 
like  the  disks  of  sunflowers.  A  great  many  of  them  were  blonde ; 
at  least  one  in  ten  had  blue  eyes  and  red  hair,  and  they  must  have 
been  the  far-descended  children  of  those  seigneurs  and  soldiers  among 
whom  Charlemagne  portioned  his  Italian  lands,  marking  to  this  day 
a  clear  distinction  of  race  between  the  citizens  and  the  contadini. 
By  and  by  we  came  to  a  little  country  church,  before  which  in  the 
grassy  piazza  two  men  had  a  humble  show  of  figs  and  cakes  for  sale 
in  their  wagon-beds,  and  another  was  selling  wine  by  the  glass  from 
a  heap  of  flasks  on  his  stand.  Here  again  I  was  reminded  of  Quebec, 
for  the  interior  of  this  church  was,  in  its  bareness  and  poverty,  quite 
like  the  poor  little  Huron  village  church  at  the  Falls  of  Lorette. 

Our  drive  was  out  from  the  Porta  Pispini  southward,  and  back  to 
the  city  through  the  Porta  Romana ;  but  pleasure  lies  in  any  course 
you  take,  and  perhaps  greater  pleasure  in  any  other  than  this.  The 
beauty  of  the  scenery  is  wilder  and  ruggeder  than  at  Florence.  In 
the  country  round  Siena  all  is  free  and  open,  with  none  of  those  high 
garden  walls  that  baffle  approach  in  the  Florentine  neighborhood. 
But  it  seems  to  have  been  as  greatly  loved  and  as  much  frequented, 
4and  there  are  villas  and  palaces  everywhere,  with  signs  of  that  per- 
sonal eccentricity  in  the  architecture  and  inscriptions  for  which  the 


190  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

Italians  ought  to  be  as  famous  as  the  English.  Out  of  the  Porta 
Camollia,  in  the  Palazzo  del  Diavolo,  which  was  the  scene  of  stirring 
facts  during  the  great  siege,  when  the  Sienese  once  beat  Duke  Cosimo's 
Florentines  out  of  it,  the  caprice  of  the  owner  has  run  riot  in  the 
decoration  of  the  brick  front,  where  heads  of  Turks  and  Saracens  are 
everywhere  thrusting  out  of  the  frieze  and  cornice.  At  Poggio  Pini 
an  inscription  on  the  porter's  lodge  declares  :  "  Count  Casti  de' 
Vecchi,  jealous  conservator  of  the  ornaments  of  the  above-situated 
villa  Poggio  Pini,  his  glory,  his  care,  placed  me  guardian  of  this 
approach." 

The  pines  thus  tenderly  and  proudly  watched  would  not  strike  the 
American  as  worthy  so  much  anxiety  ;  but  perhaps  they  are  so  in  a 
country  which  has  wasted  its  whole  patrimony  of  trees,  as  we  are 
now  so  wickedly  wasting  ours.  The  variety  of  timber  which  one 
sees  in  Tuscany  is  very  small :  pines,  poplars,  oaks,  walnuts,  chest- 
nuts,—  that  is  the  whole  story  of  the  forest  growth.  Its  brevity 
impressed  us  particularly  in  our  long  drive  to  Belcaro,  which  I 
visited  for  its  interest  as  the  quarters  of  the  Marquis  of  Marignano, 
the  Imperialist  general  during  the  siege.  Two  cannon-balls  imbedded 
in  its  walls  recall  the  fight,  with  an  appropriate  inscription ;  but 
whether  they  were  fired  by  Marignano  while  it  was  occupied  by  the 
Sienese,  or  by  the  Sienese  after  he  took  it,  I  cannot  now  remember. 
I  hope  the  reader  will  not  mind  this  a  great  deal,  especially  as  I  am 
able  to  offer  him  the  local  etymology  of  the  name  of  Belcaro :  be!  be- 
cause it  is  so  beautiful,  and  euro  because  it  cost  so  much.  It  is  now 
owned  by  two  brothers,  rich  merchants  of  Siena,  one  of  whom  lives 
in  it,  and  it  is  approached  through  a  landscape  wild,  and  sometimes 
almost  savage,  like  that  all  around  Siena,  but  of  more  fertile  aspect 
than  that  to  the  southward.  The  reader  must  always  think  of  the 
wildness  in  Italy  as  different  from  our  primeval  wildness ;  it  is  the 
wildness  of  decay,  of  relapse.  At  one  point  a  group  of  cypresses 
huddling  about  the  armless  statue  of  some  poor  god  thrilled  us  with 
a  note,  like  the  sigh  of  a  satyr's  reed,  from  the  antique  world ;  at 
another,  a  certain  wood-grown  turn  of  the  road,  there  was  a  brick 
stairway,  which  had  once   led   to  some  pavilion  of  the  hoop  and 


PANFORTE  DI  SIENA.  191 

bag-wig  age,  and  now,  grown  with  thick  moss  and  long  grasses,  had 
a  desolation  more  exquisite  than  I  can  express. 

Belcaro  itself,  however,  when  we  came  to  it,  was  in  perfectly  good 
repair,  and  afforded  a  satisfying  image  of  a  mediaeval  castle,  walled 
and  fossed  about,  and  lifting  its  mighty  curtains  of  masonry  just 
above  the  smooth  level  of  the  ilex-tops  that  hedged  it  loftily  in. 
There  was  not  very  much  to  see  within  it,  except  the  dining-hall, 
painted  by  Peruzzi  with  the  Judgment  of  Paris.  After  we  had  ad- 
mired this  we  were  shown  across  the  garden  to  the  little  lodge  which 
the  same  painter  has  deliciously  frescoed  with  indecenter  fables  than 
any  outside  of  the  Palazzo  del  Te  at  Mantua.  Beside  it  is  the  chapel 
in  which  he  has  indifferently  turned  his  hand,  with  the  same  brilliant 
facility,  to  the  illustration  of  holy  writ  and  legend.  It  was  a  curi- 
ous civilization.  Both  lodge  and  chapel  were  extraordinarily  bright 
and  cheerful. 

Prom  these  works  of  art  we  turned  and  climbed  to  the  superb 
promenade  which  crowns  the  wide  wall  of  the  castle.  In  the  garden 
below,  a  chilly  bed  of  anemones  blew  in  the  March  wind,  and  the 
top  where  we  stood  was  swept  by  a  frosty  blast,  while  the  waning 
sunshine  cast  a  sad  splendor  over  the  city  on  her  hill  seven  miles 
away.  A  delicate  rose-light  began  to  bathe  it,  in  which  the  divine 
cathedral  looked  like  some  perfect  shape  of  cloudland ;  while  the 
clustering  towers,  palaces  and  gates,  and  the  wandering  sweep  of  the 
city  wall  seemed  the  details  of  a  vision  too  lovely  for  waking  eyes. 


GOING   TO   MARKET. 


PITILESS   PISA. 


PITILESS    PISA. 


AS  Pisa  made  no  comment  on  the  little  changes  she  may  have 
observed  in  me  since  we  had  last  met,  nineteen  years  before, 
I  feel  bound  in  politeness  to  say  that  I  found  her  in  April,  1883, 
looking  not  a  day  older  than  she  did  in  December,  1864.  In  fact  she 
looked  younger,  if  anything,  though  it  may  have  been  the  season  that 
made  this  difference  in  her.  She  was  in  her  spring  attire,  freshly, 
almost  at  the  moment,  put  on ;  and  that  counts  for  much  more  in 
Pisa  than  one  who  knew  her  merely  in  the  region  of  her  palaces  and 
churches  and  bridges  would  believe.  She  has  not,  indeed,  quite  that 
breadth  of  orchards  and  gardens  within  her  walls  which  Siena  has, 
but  she  has  space  enough  for  nature  to  flourish  at  ease  there ;  and 
she  has  many  deserted  squares  and  places  where  the  grass  was 
sprouting  vigorously  in  the  crevices  of  the  pavement.  All  this  made 
her  perceptibly  younger,  even  with  her  memories  running  so  far  back 
of  Roman  times,  into  twilights  whither  perhaps  a  less  careful  modern 
historian  than  myself  would  not  follow  them.  But  when  I  am  in  a 
town  that  has  real  claims  to  antiquity,  I  like  to  allow  them  to  the 
uttermost ;  and  with  me  it  is  not  merely  a  duty,  it  is  a  pleasure,  to 
remind  the  reader  that  Pisa  was  founded  by  Pelops,  the  grandson  of 
Jove,  and  the  son  of  Tantalus,  king  of  Phrygia.  He  was  the  same 
who  was  slain  by  his  father,  and  served  in  a  banquet  to  the  gods,  to 
try  if  they  knew  everything,  or  could  be  tricked  into  eating  of  the 
hideous  repast ;  and  it  was  after  this  curious  experience  —  Ceres 
,  came  in  from  the  field,  very  tired  and  hungry,  and  popped  down  and 


190  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

tasted  a  bit  of  his  shoulder  before  they  eould  stop  her  —  that,  being 
restored  to  life  by  his  grandfather,  he  visited  Italy,  and,  liking  the 
situation  at  the  mouth  of  the  Arno,  built  his  city  there.  This  is  the 
opinion  of  Pliny  and  Sohnus,  and  that  generally  adopted  by  the  Pisan 
chroniclers ;  but  the  sceptical  Strabo  would  have  us  think  that  Pisa 
was  not  founded  till  much  later,  when  Nestor,  sailing  homeward  after 
the  fall  of  Troy,  was  cast  away  on  the  Etruscan  shore  at  this  point. 
There  are  some  historians  who  reconcile  the  accounts  by  declaring 
that  Nestor  merely  joined  the  Phrygians  at  Pisa,  and  could  never 
have  pretended  to  found  the  city.  I  myself  incline  to  this  notion ; 
but  even  if  Pisa  was  not  built  till  after  the  fall  of  Troy,  the  reader 
easily  perceives  that  a  sense  of  her  antiquity  might  affect  an  Ohio 
man,  even  after  a  residence  in  Boston.  A  city  founded  by  Pelops  or 
Nestor  could  not  be  converted  to  Christianity  by  a  less  person  than 
St.  Peter,  who,  on  his  way  to  Eome,  was  expressly  wrecked  on  the 
Pisan  coasts  for  that  purpose.  Her  faith,  like  her  origin,  is  as  an- 
cient as  possible,  and  Pisa  was  one  of  the  first  Italian  communities 
to  emerge  from  the  ruin  of  the  Eoman  Empire  into  a  vigorous  and 
splendid  life  of  her  own.  Early  in  the  Middle  Ages  she  had,  with  the 
arrogance  of  long-established  consequence,  superciliously  explained 
the  Florentines,  to  an  Eastern  potentate  who  had  just  heard  of  them, 
as  something  like  the  desert  Arabs,  —  a  lawless,  marauding,  barbar- 
ous race,  the  annoyance  of  all  respectable  and  settled  communities. 
In  those  days  Pisa  had  not  only  commerce  with  the  East,  but  wars  ; 
and  in  1005  she  famously  beat  back  the  Saracens  from  their  con- 
quests in  the  northern  Mediterranean,  and,  after  a  struggle  of  eigh- 
teen years,  ended  by  carrying  the  war  into  Africa  and  capturing 
Carthage  with  the  Emir  of  the  Saracens  in  it.  In  the  beginning  of 
this  war  her  neighbor  Lucca,  fifteen  miles  away,  profited  by  her  pre- 
occupation to  attack  her,  and  this  is  said  to  have  been  one  of  the 
first  quarrels,  if  not  the  first,  in  which  the  Italian  cities  asserted  their 
separate  nationality  and  their  independence  of  the  empire.  It  is  sup- 
posed on  that  account  to  have  been  rather  a  useful  event,  though  it 
is  scarcely  to  be  praised  otherwise.  Of  course  the  Pisans  took  it  out 
of  the  Lucchese  afterwards  in  the  intervals  of  their  more  important 


PITILESS  PISA.  197 

wars  with  the  Genoese  by  sea  and  the  Florentines  by  land.  There 
must  have  been  fighting  pretty  well  all  the  time,  back  and  forth 
across  the  vineyards  and  olive  orchards  that  stretch  between  the 
two  cities ;  I  have  counted  up  eight  distinct  wars,  bloody  and  tedi- 
ous, in  which  they  ravaged  each  other's  territory,  and  I  dare  say 
I  have  missed  some.  Once  the  Pisans  captured  Lucca  and  sacked 
it,  and  once  the  Lucchese  took  Pisa  and  sacked  it ;  the  Pisans  were 
Ghibelline,  and  the  Lucchese  were  Guelph,  and  these  things  had  to 
be.  In  the  mean  time,  Pisa  was  waging,  with  varying  fortune,  seven 
wars  with  Genoa,  seven  other  with  Florence,  three  with  Venice,  and 
one  with  Milan,  and  was  in  a  spirited  state  of  continual  party  strife 
within  herself ;  though  she  found  leisure  to  take  part  in  several  of 
the  crusades,  to  break  the  naval  supremacy  of  the  Saracens,  and  to 
beat  the  Greeks  in  sea-fights  under  the  walls  of  Constantinople.  The 
warlike  passions  of  men  were  tightly  wound  up  in  those  days,  and 
Pisa  was  set  to  fight  for  five  hundred  years.  Then  she  fell  at  last, 
in  1509,  under  the  power  of  those  upstart  Florentines,  whom  she  had 
despised  so  long. 

Almost  from  the  beginning  of  their  rivalry,  some  three  or  four 
hundred  years  before,  the  triumph  of  Florence  was  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion. The  serious  historians  are  rather  ashamed  of  the  incident  that 
kindled  the  first  hostilities  between  the  two  cities  but  the  chroniclers, 
who  are  still  more  serious,  treat  it  with  perfect  gravity ;  and  I,  who 
am  always  with  the  chroniclers,  cannot  offer  it  less  respect.  The 
fact  is,  that  one  day,  at  the  time  of  the  coronation  of  the  Emperor 
Frederick  II.  in  Rome,  the  Florentine  ambassador,  who  was  dining 
with  a  certain  cardinal,  either  politely  or  sincerely  admired  the  cardi- 
nal's lapdog  so  much  that  the  cardinal  could  not  help  making  him 
a  present  of  the  dog,  out  of  hand.  The  Florentine  thought  this  ex- 
tremely handsome  of  the  cardinal,  and  the  cardinal  forgot  all  about 
it ;  so  that  when  the  Pisan  ambassador  came  to  dine  with  him  the 
next  day,  and  professed  also  to  be  charmed  with  this  engaging  lap- 
dog,  the  cardinal  promptly  bestowed  it  upon  him  in  his  turn  ;  noth- 
ing could  equal  the  openhandedness  of  that  cardinal  in  the  matter  of 
lapdogs.    He  seems  to  have  forgotten  his  gift  to  the  Pisan  as  readily 


198  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

as  he  had  forgotten  his  present  to  the  Florentine  ;  or  possibly  he 
thought  that  neither  of  them  would  have  the  ill  manners  to  take  him 
in  earnest ;  very  likely  it  was  the  custom  to  say  to  a  guest  who  ad- 
mired your  dog,  "  He  is  yours,"  and  then  think  no  more  about  it. 
However,  the  Florentine  sent  for  the  dog  and  got  it,  and  then  the 
Pisan  sent,  and  got  the  poor  cardinal's  best  excuses  ;  one  imagines 
the  desolated  smiles  and  deprecating  shrugs  with  which  he  must 
have  made  them.  The  affair  might  have  ended  there,  if  it  had  not 
happened  that  a  party  of  Florentines  and  a  party  of  Pisans  met 
shortly  afterwards  in  Koine,  and  exchanging  some  natural  jeers  and 
taunts  concerning  the  good  cardinal's  gift,  came  to  blows  about  it. 
The  Pisans  were  the  first  to  begin  this  quarrel,  and  all  the  Floren- 
tines in  Rome  were  furious.  Oddo  di  Arrigo  Fifanti,  whom  the  dili- 
gent reader  of  these  pages  will  remember  as  one  of  the  Florentine 
gentlemen  who  helped  cut  the  throat  of  Buondelmonte  on  his  wed- 
ding day,  chanced  to  be  in  Eome,  and  put  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  Florentines.  He  was  not  the  kind  of  man  to  let  any  sort  of 
quarrel  suffer  in  his  hands,  and  he  led  the  Florentines  on  to  attack 
the  Pisan  legation  in  the  street. 

"When  the  news  of  this  outrage  came  to  Pisa,  it  set  the  hot  little 
state  in  a  flame.  She  was  glad  of  a  chance  to  break  with  Florence, 
for  the  Pisans  had  long  been  jealous  of  the  growing  power  of  the 
upstart  city,  and  they  hastened  to  make  reprisal  by  seizing  all  the 
Florentine  merchandise  within  their  borders.  Florence  still  remained 
in  such  awe  of  the  old-established  respectability  of  Pisa,  and  of  her 
supremacy  by  land  and  sea,  lately  illustrated  in  her  victorious  wars 
with  the  Genoese  and  Saracens,  that  she  was  willing  to  offer  any 
reasonable  reparation ;  and  her  consuls  even  sent  to  pay  secretly  the 
price  of  the  confiscated  goods,  if  only  they  could  have  them  back, 
and  so  make  an  appearance  of  honorable  reconciliation  before  their 
people.  The  Pisan  authorities  refused  these  humble  overtures,  and 
the  Florentines  desperately  prepared  for  war.  The  campaign  ended 
in  a  single  battle  at  Castel  del  Bosco,  where  the  Florentines,  sup- 
ported by  the  Lucchese,  defeated  the  Pisans  with  great  slaughter, 
and  conquered  a  peace  that  left  them  masters  of  the  future.     After 


PITILESS  PISA.  199 

that  Pisa  was  in  league  with  Florence,  as  she  had  been  in  league 
with  her  before  that,  against  the  encroachments  of  the  emperors 
npon  the  liberties  of  the  Tuscan  cities,  and  she  was  often  at  war 
with  her,  siding  with  the  Sienese  in  one  of  their  famous  defeats  at 
the  hands  of  the  Florentines,  and  generally  doing  what  she  could  to 
disable  and  destroy  her  rival.  She  seems  to  have  grown  more  and 
more  incapable  of  governing  herself ;  she  gave  herself  to  this  master 
and  that;  and  at  last,  in  1406,  after  a  siege  of  eight  months,  she  was 
reduced  by  the  Florentines.  Her  women  had  fought  together  with 
her  men  in  her  defence  ;  the  people  were  starving,  and  the  victors 
wept  at  the  misery  they  saw  within  the  fallen  city. 

The  Florentines  had  hoped  to  inherit  the  maritime  greatness  of 
Pisa,  but  this  perished  with  her ;  thereafter  the  ships  that  left  her 
famous  arsenal  were  small  and  few.  The  Florentines  treated  their 
captive  as  well  as  a  mediaeval  people  knew  how,  and  addressed 
themselves  to  the  restoration  of  her  prosperity ;  but  she  languished 
in  their  hold  for  nearly  a  hundred  years,  when  Pietro  de'  Medici, 
hoping  to  make  interest  for  himself  with  Charles  VIII.  of  France 
(who  seems  to  have  invaded  Italy  rather  for  the  verification  of  one 
of  Savonarola's  prophecies  than  for  any  other  specific  purpose), 
handed  over  Pisa  with  the  other  Florentine  fortresses  to  the  French 
troops.  When  their  commandant  evacuated  the  place,  he  restored 
it  not  to  the  Florentines  but  to  the  Pisans.  The  Florentines  set 
instantly  and  actively  about  the  reconquest,  and  after  a  siege  and 
a  blockade  that  lasted  for  years,  they  accomplished  it.  In  this  siege, 
as  in  the  other  great  defence,  the  Pisan  women  fought  side  by  side 
with  the  men  ;  it  is  told  of  two  sisters  working  upon  the  fortifica- 
tions, that  when  one  was  killed  by  a  cannon-shot  the  other  threw 
her  body  into  a  gabion,  covered  it  with  earth,  and  went  on  with  her 
work  above  it.  Before  Pisa  fell  people  had  begun  to  drop  dead  of 
famine  in  her  streets,  and  the  Florentines,  afraid  that  they  would 
destroy  the  city  in  their  despair,  offered  them  terms  far  beyond  their 
h  opes,  after  a  war  of  fifteen  years. 


200  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

II. 

What  is  odd  in  the  history  of  Pisa  is  that  it  has  given  but  one 
name  to  common  remembrance.  Her  prosperity  was  early  and  great, 
and  her  people  employed  it  in  the  cultivation  of  all  the  arts;  yet 
Andrea  and  Nicolo  Pisano  are  almost  the  only  artists  whose  fame  is 
associated  with  that  of  their  native  city.  She  was  perpetually  at 
war  by  sea  and  by  land,  yet  her  admirals  and  generals  are  unknown 
to  the  world.  Her  university  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  learned 
in  Italy,  yet  she  produced  no  eminent  scholars  or  poets,  and  one 
hardly  realizes  that  the  great  Galileo,  who  came  a  century  after  the 
fall  of  his  country,  was  not  a  Florentine  but  a  Pisan  by  birth ;  he  was 
actually  of  a  Florentine  family  settled  in  Pisa.  When  one  thinks  of 
Florence,  one  thinks  of  Dante,  of  Giotto,  of  Cimabue,  of  Brunelleschi, 
of  Michelangelo,  of  Savonarola,  and  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  and  Leo  X., 
of  Boccaccio  and  Pulci  and  Politian,  of  Machiavelli,  of  Giovanni  delle 
Bande  Nere  and  Gino  Capponi,  of  Guido  Cavalcanti,  of  Amerigo  Ves- 
pucci, of  Benvenuto  Cellini,  and  Masaccio  and  Botticelli,  and  all 
the  rest.  When  one  thinks  of  Siena,  one  thinks  of  St.  Catharine, 
and  Ochino,  and  Socinus,  and  the  Piccolomini,  and  Bandini,  and 
Sodoma ;  but  when  one  thinks  of  Pisa,  Ugolino  is  the  sole-  name  that 
comes  into  one's  mind.  I  am  not  at  all  sure,  however,  that  one  ought 
to  despise  Pisa  for  her  lack  of  celebrities ;  I  am  rather  of  a  contrary 
opinion.  It  is  certain  that  such  a  force  and  splendor  as  she  was  for 
five  hundred  years  could  have  been  created  only  by  a  consensus  of 
mighty  wills,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  a  very  pretty  case  might  be 
made  out  in  behalf  of  the  democracy  whose  level  was  so  high  that 
no  one  head  could  be  seen  above  it.  Perhaps  this  is  what  we  are 
coming  to  in  our  own  civilization,  and  I  am  disposed  to  take  heart 
from  the  heroless  history  of  Pisa  when  I  look  round  over  the  vast 
plain  of  our  equality,  where  every  one  is  as  great  as  every  other. 

I  wish,  if  this  is  the  case,  we  might  come  finally  to  anything  as 
clean  and  restful  and  lovely  as  I  found  Pisa  on  the  day  of  my  arrival ; 
but  of  course  that  would  be  much  more  difficult  for  a  continent  than 
for  a  city,  and  probably  our  last  state  will  not  be  so  pleasant.     On 


PITILESS  PISA.  201 

our  way  down  from  Florence,  through  much  the  same  landscape  as 
that  through  which  we  had  started  to  Siena,  the  peach-trees  were 
having  their  turn  in  the  unhurried  Italian  spring's  succession  of 
blossoms,  and  the  fields  were  lit  with  their  pathetic  pink,  where 
earlier  the  paler  bloom  of  the  almond  had  prevailed.  As  I  said, 
Pisa  herself  was  in  her  spring  dress,  and  it  may  be  that  the  season 
had  touched  her  with  the  langour  which  it  makes  the  whole  world 
feel,  as  she  sat  dreaming  beside  her  Arno,  in  the  midst  of  the  gardens 
that  compassed  her  about  within  her  walls.  I  do  not  know  what 
Pisa  had  to  say  to  other  tourists  who  arrived  that  day,  but  we  were 
old  friends,  and  she  regarded  me  with  a  frank,  sad  wonder  when  she 
read  in  my  eyes  a  determination  to  take  notes  of  her. 

"  Is  it  possible  ? "  she  expressed,  with  that  mute,  melancholy  air 
of  hers.  "You,  who  have  lived  in  Italy,  and  ought  to  know  better  ? 
You,  who  have  been  here,  before  ?  Sit  down  with  me  beside  the 
Arno !  '*  and  she  indicated  two  or  three  empty  bridges,  which  I  was 
welcome  to,  or  if  I  preferred  half  a  mile  or  so  of  that  quay,  which 
has  the  noblest  sweep  in  the  world,  there  it  was,  vacant  for  me.  I 
shrugged  my  excuses,  as  well  as  I  could,  and  indicated  the  artist  at 
my  side,  who  with  his  etching-plate  under  his  arm,  and  his  hat  in 
his  hand,  was  making  his  manners  to  Pisa,  and  I  tried  to  explain 
that  we  were  both  there  under  contract  to  produce  certain  illustrated 
papers  for  The  Century.* 

"  What  papers  ?  What  Century  ? "  she  murmured,  and  tears  came 
into  the  eyes  of  the  beautiful  ghost ;  and  she  added  with  an  inex- 
pressible pathos  and  bitterness,  "  I  remember  no  century,  since  the 
fifteenth,  when  —  I  —  died." 

She  would  not  say,  when  she  fell  under  the  power  of  her  enemy, 
but  we  knew  she  was  thinking  of  Florence ;  and  as  she  bowed  her 
face  in  her  hands,  we  turned  away  with  our  hearts  in  our  throat. 

We  thought  it  well  not  to  go  about  viewing  the  monuments  of  her 

fallen  grandeur  at  once,  —  they  arc  all  kept  in  wonderful  repair,  — 

and  we  left  the  Arno,  whose,  mighty  curve  is  followed  on  either  side 

by  lines  of  magnificent  palaces,  and  got  our  driver  to  carry  us  out  to 

*  The  Magazine  in  which  these  sketches  were  first  printed. 


202 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


the  streets  that  dwindled  into  lanes  beside  the  gardens  fenced  in  oy 
the  red  brick  city  walls.  At  one  point  a  long  stretch  of  the  wall 
seemed  trellised  for  yellow  roses  which  covered  acres  of  it  with  their 
golden  multitude ;  but  when  we  got  down  and  walked  nearer,  with 


THE  SWEEP  OF  THE  ARNO  AT  PISA. 


the  permission  of  the  peasant  whose  field  we  passed  through,  we 
found  they  were  lemons.  He  said  they  grew  very  well  in  that  shel- 
ter and  exposure,  and  his  kind  old  weather-beaten,  friendly  face  was 
almost  the  color  of  one.  He  bade  us  go  anywhere  we  liked  in  his 
garden,  and  he  invited  us  to  drink  of  the  water  of  his  well,  which  he 


PITILESS  PISA. 


203 


said  never  went  dry  in  the  hottest  weather.  Then  he  returned  to  his 
fat  old  wife,  who  had  kept  on  weeding,  and  bent  down  beside  her  and 
did  not  follow  us  for  drink-money,  but  returned  a  self-respectful  adieu 
from  a  distance,  when  we  called  a  good-by  before  getting  into  our 
carriage.  "We  generalized  from  his  behavior  a  manly  independence  of 
character  in  the  Pisan  people,  and  I  am  sure  we  were  not  mistaken 
in  the  beauty  of  the  Pisan  women,  who,  as  we  met  them  in  the 
street,  were  all  extremely  pretty,  and  young,  many  of  them,  even 
after  five  hundred  years.  One  gets  over  expecting  good  looks  in 
Tuscany ;  and  perhaps  this  was  the  reason  why  we  prized  the  loveli- 
ness of  the  Pisans.  It  may  have  been  comparative,  only,  though  I 
am  inclined  to  think  it  was  positive.  At  any  rate,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  about  the  landscape  outside  the  walls,  which  we  drove  into  a 
little  way  out  of  one  of  the  gates,  to  return  by  another.  It  was  a 
plain  country,  and  at  this  point  a  line  of  aqueduct  stretched  across 
the  smiling  fields  to  the  feet  of  the  arid,  purple  hills,  that  propped 
the  blue  horizon.  There  was  something  richly  simple  in  the  elements 
of  the  picture,  which  was  of  as  few  tones  as  a  landscape  of  Titian 
or  Raphael,  and  as  strictly  subordinated  in  its  natural  features  to 
the  human  interest,  which  we  did  our  best  to  represent.  I  dare 
say  our  best  was  but  poor.  Every  acre  of  that  plain  had  been 
the  theatre  of  a  great  tragedy ;  every  rood  of  ground  had  borne  its 
hero.  Now,  in  the  advancing  spring,  the  grass  and  wheat  were  long 
enough  to  flow  in  the  wind,  and  they  flowed  like  the  ripples  of  a 
wide  green  sea  to  the  feet  of  those  purple  hills,  away  from  our  feet 
where  we  stood  beside  our  carriage  on  its  hither  shore.  The  warmth 
of  the  season  had  liberated  the  fine  haze  that  dances  above  the  sum- 
mer fields,  and  this  quivered  before  us  like  the  confluent  phantoms 
of  multitudes,  indistinguishably  vast,  who  had  fallen  there  in  im- 
memorial strife.  But  we  could  not  stand  musing  long  upon  this 
fact;  we  had  taken  that  carriage  by  the  hour.  Yet  we  could  not  help 
loitering  along  by  the  clear  stream  that  followed  the  road,  till  it 
brought  us  to  a  flour-whitened  mill,  near  the  city  wall,  slowly  and 
.thoughtfully  turning  its  huge  undershot  wheel;  and  I  could  not  re- 
sist entering  and  speaking  to  the  miller,  where,  leaning  upon  a  sack 


204  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

of  wheat,  he  dimly  loomed  through  the  powdered  air,  in  the  exact 
attitude  of  a  miller  I  used  to  know  in  a  mill  on  the  Little  Miami,  in 
Ohio,  when  I  was  a  boy. 

III. 

I  TRY  to  give  the  reader  a  true  impression  of  the  sweet  confusion 
of  travel  in  those  old  lands.  In  the  phrases  that  come  out  of  the 
point  of  the  pen,  rather  than  out  of  the  head  or  the  heart,  we  talk 
about  losing  ourselves  in  the  associations  of  the  past ;  but  we  never 
do  it.  A  prime  condition  of  our  sympathy  with  it,  is  that  we  always 
and  every  instant  and  vividly  find  our  dreary,  tiresome,  unstoried, 
unstoriable  selves  in  it ;  and  if  I  had  been  less  modern,  less  recent, 
less  raw,  I  should  have  been  by  just  so  much  indifferent  to  the  an- 
tique charm  of  the  place.  In  the  midst  of  my  reverie  of  the  Pisan 
past,  I  dreamily  asked  the  miller  about  the  milling  business  in  the 
Pisan  present.     I  forget  what  he  said. 

The  artist  outside  had  begun  an  etching,  —  if  you  let  that  artist  out 
of  your  sight  half  a  second  he  began  an  etching,  —  and  we  got  back 
by  a  common  effort  into  the  town  again,  where  we  renewed  our  im- 
pression of  a  quiet  that  was  only  equalled  by  its  cleanliness,  of  a 
cleanliness  that  was  only  surpassed  by  its  quiet.  I  think  of  certain 
dim  arcaded  streets ;  of  certain  genial,  lonely,  irregular  squares,  more 
or  less  planted  with  pollarded  sycamores,  just  then  woolily  tufted 
with  their  leaf-buds ;  and  I  will  ask  the  reader  to  think  of  such 
white  light  over  all  as  comes  in  our  own  first  real  spring  days ; 
for  in  some  atmospheric  qualities  and  effects  the  spring  is  nowhere 
so  much  alike  as  in  America  and  Italy.  In  one  of  these  squares 
the  boys  were  playing  ball,  striking  it  with  a  small  tambourine 
instead  of  a  bat ;  in  another,  some  young  girls  sat  under  a  syca- 
more with  their  sewing ;  and  in  a  narrow  street  running  out  of 
this  was  the  house  where  Galileo  was  born.  He  is  known  to 
have  said  that  the  world  moves ;  but  I  do  not  believe  it  has  moved 
much  in  that  neighborhood  since  his  time.  His  natal  roof  is 
overlooked  by  a  lofty  gallery  leading  into  Prince  Corsini's  gar- 
den ;  and  I  wish  I  could  have  got  inside  of  that  garden  ;   it  must 


PITILESS  PISA. 


205 


have  been  pleasanter  than  the  street  in  which  Galileo  was  born,  and 
which  more  nearly  approached  squalor  in  its  condition  than  any 
other  street  that  I  remember  in  Pisa.  It  had  fallen  from  no  better 
state,  and  must  always  have  witnessed  to  the  poverty  of  the  decayed 
Florentine  fam- 
ily from  which 
Galileo  sprang. 
I  left  the  ar- 
tist there  —  be- 
ginning an  etch- 
ing as  usual  — 
and  wandered 
back  to  our  ho- 
tel; for  it  was 
then  in  the 
drowsy  heart  of 
the  late  after- 
noon, and  I  be- 
lieved that  Pisa 
had  done  all 
that  she  could 
for  me  in  one 
day.  But  she 
had  reserved  a 
little  surprise, 
quaint  and  un- 
imaginable 

enough,  in  a  small  chapel  of  the  Chiesa  Evan- 
gel ica  Metodista  Italiana,  which  she  suddenly  showed  me  in  a  re- 
tired street  I  wandered  through.  This  Italian  Evangelical  Method- 
ist Church  was  but  a  tiny  structure,  and  it  stood  back  from  the  street 
in  a  yard,  with  some  hollies  and  myrtles  before  it, — simple  and  plain, 
like  a  little  Methodist  church  at  home.  It  had  not  a  frequented 
.look,  and  I  was  told  afterwards  that  the  Methodists  of  Pisa  were  in 
that  state  of  arrest  which  the  whole  Protestant  movement  in  Italy 


AN    ARCADED   STREET 


206  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

has  fallen  into,  after  its  first  vigorous  impulse.  It  has  not  lost  ground, 
but  it  has  not  gained,  which  is  also  a  kind  of  loss.  Apparently  the 
Protestant  church  which  prospers  best  in  Italy  is  the  ancient  Italian 
church  of  the  Waldenses.  This  presents  the  Italians  a  Protestantism 
of  their  own  invention,  while  perhaps  the  hundred  religions  which 
we  offer  them  are  too  distracting,  if  unaccompanied  by  our  one  gravy. 
It  is  said  that  our  missionaries  have  unexpected  difficulties  to  en- 
counter in  preaching  to  the  Italians,  who  are  not  amused,  as  we 
should  be,  by  a  foreigner's  blunder,  in  our  language,  but  annoyed  and 
revolted  by  incorrect  Italian  from  the  pulpit.  They  have,  moreover, 
their  intellectual  pride  in  the  matter :  they  believe  that  if  Protestant- 
ism had  been  the  wiser  and  better  thing  we  think  it,  the  Italians 
would  have  found  it  out  long  ago  for  themselves.  As  it  is,  such 
proselytes  as  we  make  are  among  the  poor  and  ignorant;  though  that 
is  the  way  all  religions  begin. 

After  the  Methodist  church  it  was  not  at  all  astonishing  to  come 
upon  an  agricultural  implement  warehouse  —  alongside  of  a  shop 
glaring  with  alabaster  statuary  ■ — ■  where  the  polite  attendant  offered 
me  an  American  pump  as  the  very  best  thing  of  its  kind  that  I  could 
use  on  my  vodcre.  "When  I  explained  that  I  and  his  pump  were 
fellow-countrymen,  I  could  see  that  we  both  rose  in  his  respect. 
A  French  pump,  he  said,  was  not  worth  anything  in  comparison, 
and  I  made  my  own  inferences  as  to  the  relative  inferiority  of  a 
French  man. 

IV. 

When  I  got  to  the  hotel  I  asked  for  the  key  to  my  room,  which 
opened  by  an  inner  door  into  the  artist's  room,  and  was  told  that  the 
artist  had  it.  He  had  come  out  by  that  door,  it  appeared,  and  car- 
ried off  the  key  in  his  pocket, 

"  Very  well,"  I  said,  "  then  let  us  get  in  with  the  porter's  key." 

They  answered  that  the  porter  had  no  key,  and  they  confessed 

that  there  was  no  other  key  than  that  which  my  friend  had  in  his 

pocket.     They  maintained  that  for  one  door  one  key  was  enough,  and 

they  would  not  hear  to  the  superiority  of  the  American  hotel  system 


PITILESS  PISA.  207 

of  several  keys,  which  I,  flown  with  pride  by  the  lately  acknowledged 
pre-eminence  of  American  pumps,  boasted  for  their  mortification.  I 
leave  the  sympathetic  reader  of  forty-six  to  conceive  the  feelings  of 
a  man  whose  whole  being  had  set  nap-wards  in  a  lethal  tide,  and 
who  now  found  himself  arrested  and  as  it  were  dammed  up  in  in- 
evitable vigils.  In  the  reading-room  there  were  plenty  of  old  news- 
papers that  one  could  sleep  over ;  but  there  was  not  a  lounge,  not 
an  arm-chair.  I  pulled  up  one  of  the  pitiless,  straightbacked  seats 
to  the  table,  and  meditated  upon  the  lost  condition  of  an  artist  who, 
without  even  meaning  it,  could  be  so  wicked ;  and  then  I  opened  the 
hotel  register  in  which  the  different  guests  had  inscribed  their  names, 
their  residences,  their  feelings,  their  opinions  of  Pisa  and  of  the  Hotel 
Minerva. 

"  This,"  I  said  to  my  bitter  heart,  "  will  help  a  man  to  sleep,  stand- 
ing upright." 

But  to  my  surprise  I  presently  found  myself  interested  in  these 
predecessors  of  mine.  They  were,  in  most  unexpected  number,  South 
Americans,  and  there  were  far  more  Spanish  than  English  names 
from  our  hemisphere,  though  I  do  not  know  why  the  South  Ameri- 
cans should  not  travel  as  well  as  we  of  the  Northern  continent. 
There  were,  of  course,  Europeans  of  all  races  and  languages,  con- 
spicuous among  whom  for  their  effusion  and  expansiveness  were  the 
French.  I  should  rather  have  thought  the  Germans  would  be 
foremost  in  this  sort,  but  these  French  bridal  couples  —  they  all 
seemed  to   be   on   their  wedding   journeys  —  let   their   joy   bubble 

frankly  out  in  the  public  record.     One  Baron declared  that  he 

saw  Pisa  for  the  second  time,  and  "  How  much  more  beautiful  it  is," 
he  cries,  "  now  when  I  see  it  on  my  bridal  tour!"  and  his  wife  writes 
fondly  above  this,  —  one  fancies  her  with  her  left  arm  thrown  round 
his  neck  while  they  bend  over  the  book  together,  —  "  Life  is  a  jour- 
ney which  we  should  always  make  in  pairs."     On  another  page, 

"  Cecie  and  Louis ,  on  their  wedding  journey,  are  very  content 

with  this  hotel,  and  still  more  witli  being  together." 

Who  could  they  have  been,  I  wonder ;  and  are  they  still  better  sat- 
isfied with  each  other's  company  than  with  the  hotels  they  stop  at  ? 


208  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

The  Minerva  was  a  good  hotel ;  not  perhaps  all  that  these  Gallic 
doves  boasted  it,  but  very  fair  indeed,  and  the  landlord  took  off  a  charge 
for  two  pigeons  when  we  represented  that  he  had  only  given  us  one 
for  dinner.  The  artist  came  in,  after  a  while,  with  the  appetite  of  a 
good  conscience,  and  that  dinner  almost  starved  us.  We  tried  to  eke 
out  the  pigeon  with  vegetables,  but  the  cook's  fire  had  gone  down, 
and  we  could  get  nothing  but  salad.  There  is  nothing  I  hate  more, 
under  such  circumstances,  than  a  giarclinetto  for  dessert,  and  a  garden- 
ette  was  all  we  had ;  a  little  garden  that  grew  us  only  two  wizened 
pears,  some  dried  prunes,  and  two  slices  of  Gruyere  cheese,  fitter  for 
a  Parisian  bridal  pair  than  for  us.  If  my  memory  serves  me  right 
we  had  to  go  out  to  a  cafe  for  our  after-dinner  coffee. 

At  any  rate  we  went  out,  and  walked  up  to  look  at  the  Arno  under 
the  pale  moon.  We  found  the  river  roughed  by  the  chill  wind  that 
flared  the  line  of  lamps  defining  the  curve  of  the  quay  before  the 
shadowy  palaces,  and  swept  through  the  quiet  streets,  and  while  we 
lounged  upon  the  parapet,  a  poor  mountebank — of  those  that  tumble 
for  centesimi  before  the  cafes  —  came  by,  shivering  and  shrinking  in 
his  shabby  tights.  His  spangled  breech-cloth  emitted  some  forlorn 
gleams  ;  he  was  smoking  a  cigarette,  and  trying  to  keep  on  by  a 
succession  of  shrugs  the  jacket  that  hung  from  one  of  his  shoulders. 
I  give  him  to  the  reader  for  whatever  he  can  do  with  him  in  an 
impression  of  Pisa. 


One  of  our  first  cares  in  Pisa  was  of  course  to  visit  the  Four 
Fabrics,  as  the  Italians  call,  par  excellence,  the  Duomo,  the  Leaning 
Tower,  the  Baptistery,  and  the  Campo  Santo.  I  say  cares,  for  to  me 
it  was  not  a  great  pleasure.  I  perceive,  by  reference  to  my  note- 
book, that  I  found  that  group  far  less  impressive  than  at  first,  and 
that  the  Campo  Santo  especially  appeared  conscious  and  finicking.  I 
had  seen  those  Orgagna  frescos  before,  and  I  had  said  to  myself 
twenty  years  ago,  in  obedience  to  whatever  art-critic  I  had  in  my 
pocket,  that  here  was  the  highest  evidence  of  the  perfect  sincerity  in 
which  the  early  masters  wrought,  —  that  no  one  could  have  painted 


PITILESS  PISA.  209 

those  horrors  of  death  and  torments  of  hell  who  had  not  thoroughly 
believed  in  them.  But  this  time  I  had  my  doubts,  and  I  questioned 
if  the  painters  of  the  Campo  Santo  might  not  have  worked  with 
almost  as  little  faith  and  reverence  as  so  many  American  humorists. 
Why  should  we  suppose  that  the  men  who  painted  the  Vergognosa 
peeping  through  her  fingers  at  the  debauch  of  Noah  should  not  be 
capable  of  making  ferocious  fun  of  the  scenes  which  they  seemed  to 
depict  seriously  ?  There  is,  as  we  all  know,  a  modern  quality  in  the 
great  minds,  the  quickest  wits,  of  all  ages,  and  I  do  not  feel  sure  these 
old  painters  are  always  to  be  taken  at  their  word.  Were  they  not 
sometimes  making  a  mock  of  the  devout  clerics  and  laics  who  em- 
ployed them  ?  It  is  bitter  fun,  I  allow.  The  Death  and  the  Hell  of 
Orgagna  are  atrocious  —  nothing  less.  A  hideous  fancy,  if  not  a  gro- 
tesque, insolent  humor,  riots  through  those  scenes,  where  the  damned 
are  shown  with  their  entrails  dangling  out  (my  pen  cannot  be  half  so 
plain  as  his  brush),  with  their  arms  chopped  off,  and  their  tongues 
torn  out  by  fiends,  with  their  women's  breasts  eaten  by  snakes.  I 
for  one  will  not  pretend  to  have  revered  those  works  of  art,  or  to 
have  felt  anything  but  loathing  in  their  presence.  If  I  am  told  that 
I  ought  at  least  to  respect  the  faith  with  which  the  painter  wrought, 
I  say  that  faith  was  not  respectable;  and  I  can  honor  him  more  if  I 
believe  he  was  portraying  those  evil  dreams  in  contempt  of  them, — 
doing  what  he  could  to  make  faith  in  them  impossible  by  realizing 
them  in  all  the  details  of  their  filthy  cruelty.  It  was  misery  to  look 
upon  them,  and  it  was  bliss  to  turn  my  back  and  give  my  gaze  to  the 
innocent  wilding  flowers  and  weeds,  —  the  daisies  that  powdered  the 
sacred  earth  brought  from  the  Holy  Land  in  the  Pisan  galleys  of  old, 
for  the  sweeter  repose  of  those  laid  away  here  to  wait  the  judgment 
day.  How  long  they  had  been  sleeping  already !  But  they  do  not 
dream ;  that  was  one  comfort. 

I  revisited  the  Baptistery  for  the  sake  of  the  famous  echo  which 
I  had  heard  before,  and  which  had  sweetly  lingered  in  my  sense  all 
these  twenty  years.  But  I  was  now  a  little  disappointed  in  it, — 
perhaps  because  the  custodian  who  had  howled  so  skilfully  to  evoke 
it  was  no  longer  there,  but  a  mere  tyro  intent  upon  his  half  franc, 

14 


210  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

with  no  real  feeling  for  ululation  as  an  art.  Guides  and  custodians 
of  an  unexampled  rapacity  swarmed  in  and  all  about  the  Four  Fab- 
rics, and  beggars,  whom  we  had  almost  forgotten  in  Florence,  were 
there  in  such  number  that  if  the  Leaning  Tower  were  to  fall,  as  it 
still  looks  capable  of  doing  at  any  moment,  it  would  half  depopulate 
Pisa.  I  grieve  to  say  that  I  encouraged  mendicancy  in  the  person 
of  an  old  woman  whom  I  gave  a  franc  by  mistake  for  a  soldo.  She 
had  not  the  public  spirit  to  refuse  it;  without  giving  me  time  to 
correct  the  error,  her  hand  closed  upon  it  like  a  talon  of  a  vulture, 
and  I  had  to  get  what  consolation  I  could  out  of  pretending  to  have 
meant  to  give  her  a  franc,  and  to  take  lightly  the  blessings  under 
which  I  really  staggered. 

It  may  have  been  this  misadventure  that  cast  a  malign  light  upon 
the  cathedral,  which  I  found,  after  that  of  Siena,  not  at  all  estimable. 
I  dare  say  it  had  its  merits ;  but  I  could  get  no  pleasure  even  out  of 
the  swinging  lamp  of  Galileo ;  it  was  a  franc,  large  as  the  full  moon, 
and  reproachfully  pale,  that  waved  to  and  fro  before  my  eyes.  This 
cathedral,  however,  is  only  the  new  Duomo  of  Pisa,  being  less  than 
eight  hundred  years  of  age,  and  there  is  an  old  Duomo,  in  another 
part  of  the  city,  which  went  much  more  to  my  heart.  I  do  not  pre- 
tend that  I  entered  it ;  but  it  had  a  lovely  facade  of  Pisan  gothic, 
mellowed  through  all  its  marble  by  the  suns  of  a  thousand  summers, 
and  weed-grown  in  every  neglected  niche  and  nook  where  dust  and 
seeds  could  be  lodged ;  so  that  I  now  wonder  I  did  not  sit  down 
before  it  and  spend  the  rest  of  my  life  there. 

VI. 

The  reader,  who  has  been  requested  to  imagine  the  irregular  form 
and  the  perpetually  varying  heights  and  depths  of  Siena,  is  now  set 
the  easier  task  of  supposing  Pisa  shut  within  walls  almost  quadran- 
gular, and  reposing  on  a  level  which  expands  to  the  borders  of  the 
hills  beyond  Lucca,  and  drops  softly  with  the  Arno  towards  the  sea. 
The  river  divides  the  southward  third  of  the  city  from  the  rest,  to 
which  stately  bridges  bind  it  again.     The  group  of  the  Four  Fabrics, 


PITILESS  PISA.  211 

to  which  we  have  paid  a  devoir  tempered  by  modern  misgiving,  rises 
in  aristocratic  seclusion  in  the  northwestern  corner  of  the  quad- 
rangle, and  the  outer  wall  of  the  Campo  Santo  is  the  wall  of  the 
city.  Nothing  statelier  than  the  position  of  these  edifices  could  be 
conceived ;  and  yet  their  isolation,  so  favorable  to  their  reproduction 
in  small  alabaster  copies,  costs  them  something  of  the  sympathy  of 
the  sensitive  spectator.  He  cannot  withhold  his  admiration  of  that 
grandeur,  but  his  soul  turns  to  the  Duomo  in  the  busy  heart  of 
Florence,  or  to  the  cathedral,  pre-eminent  but  not  solitary  in  the  crest 
of  Siena.  The  Pisans  have  put  their  famous  group  apart  from  their 
streets  and  shops,  and  have  consecrated  to  it  a  region  which  no 
business  can  take  them  to.  In  this  they  have  gained  distinction 
and  effect  for  it,  but  they  have  lost  for  it  that  character  of  friendly 
domesticity  which  belongs  to  all  other  religious  edifices  that  I  know 
in  Italy.  Here,  as  in  some  other  things  not  so  easily  definable,  the 
people  so  mute  in  all  the  arts  but  architecture  —  of  which  they  were 
the  origin  and  school  in  Italy  —  seem  to  have  expressed  themselves 
mistakenly.  The  Four  Fabrics  are  where  they  are  to  be  seen,  to  be 
visited,  to  be  wondered  at ;  but  they  are  remote  from  human  society, 
and  they  fail  of  the  last  and  finest  effect  of  architecture,  —  the  per- 
fect adaptation  of  houses  to  the  use  of  men.  Perhaps  also  one  feels 
a  want  of  unity  in  the  group ;  perhaps  they  are  too  much  like  dishes 
set  upon  the  table :  the  Duomo  a  vast  and  beautiful  pudding ;  the 
Baptistery  a  gigantic  charlotte  russe;  the  Campo  Santo  an  exquisite 
structure  in  sugar ;  the  Leaning  Tower,  a  column  of  ice-cream  which 
has  been  weakened  at  the  base  by  too  zealous  an  application  of 
hot  water  to  the  outside  of  the  mould.  But  I  do  not  insist  upon 
this  comparison ;  I  only  say  that  I  like  the  ancient  church  of 
St.  Paul  by  the  Arno.  Some  question  whether  it  was  really  the 
first  cathedral  of  Pisa,  maintaining  that  it  was  merely  used  as  such 
while  the  Duomo  was  in  repair  after  the  fire  from  which  it  suffered 
shortly  after  its  completion. 

One  must  nowadays  seem  to  have  some  preference  in  all  {esthetic 
matters,  but  the  time  was  when  polite  tourists  took  things  more 
easily.     In  the  seventeenth  century,  "  Eichard  Lassels,  Gent,  who 


212  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

Travelled  through  Italy  five  times  as  Tutor  to  several  of  the  English 
Nobility  and  Gentry,"  says  of  the  Pisan  Duomo  that  it  "  is  a  neat 
Church  for  structure,  and  for  its  three  Brazen  Doors  historied  with 
a  fine  Basso  rilievo.  It 's  built  after  La  maniera  Tedescha,  a  fashion 
of  Building  much  used  in  Italy  four  or  five  hundred  years  ago,  and 
brought  in  by  Germans  or  Tedeschi,  saith  Vasari.  Near  to  the  Domo 
stands  (if  leaning  may  be  called  standing)  the  bending  Tower,  so  arti- 
ficially made,  that  it  seems  to  be  falling,  and  yet  it  stands  firm.  .  .  . 
On  the  other  side  of  the  Domo,  is  the  Campo  Santo,  a  great  square 
cloistered  about  with  a  low  cloister  curiously  painted." 

Here  is  no  trouble  of  mind  about  the  old  masters,  either  architects 
or  painters,  but  a  beautiful  succinctness,  a  tranquil  brevity,  which  no 
concern  for  the  motives,  or  meanings,  or  aspirations  of  either  pene- 
trates. We  have  taken  upon  ourselves  in  these  days  a  heavy  burden 
of  inquiry  as  to  what  the  mediaeval  masters  thought  and  felt ;  but 
the  tourist  of  the  seventeenth  century  could  say  of  the  Pisan  Duomo 
that  it  was  "a  neat  church  for  structure,"  and  of  the  Campo  Santo 
that  it  was  "  curiously  painted,"  and  there  an  end.  Perhaps  there 
was  a  relief  for  the  reader  also  in  this  method.  Master  Lassels 
vexed  himself  to  spell  his  Italian  correctly  no  more  than  he  did 
his  English. 

He  visited,  apparently  with  more  interest,  the  Church  of  the 
Knights  of  St.  Stephen,  which  indeed  I  myself  found  full  of  unique 
attraction.  Of  these  knights  he  says  :  "  They  wear  a  Bed  Cross  of 
Satin  upon  their  Cloaks,  and  profess  to  fight  against  the  Turks.  Eor 
this  purpose  they  have  here  a  good  House  and  Maintainance.  Their 
Church  is  beautified  without  with  a  handsome  Faciata  of  White 
Marble,  and  within  with  Turkish  Ensigns  and  divers  Lanterns  of 
Capitanesse  Gallies.  In  this  House  the  Knights  live  in  common, 
and  they  are  well  maintained.  In  their  Treasury  they  shew  a  great 
Buckler  of  Diamonds,  won  in  a  Battle  against  the  Turks.  .  .  .  They 
have  their  Cancellaria,  a  Catalogue  of  those  Knights  who  have  done 
notable  service  against  the  Turks,  which  serves  for  a  powerful  exhor- 
tation to  their  Successors,  to  do,  and  die  bravely.  In  fine,  these 
Knights  may  marry  if  they  will,  and  live  in  their  own  particular 


PITILESS  PISA.  213 

houses,  but  many  of  them  choose  celibate,  as  more  convenient  for 
brave  Soldiers  ;  Wives  and  Children  being  the  true  impedimenta 
exercitus." 

The  knights  were  long  gone  from  their  House  and  Maintenance  in 
1883,  and  I  suspect  it  is  years  since  any  of  them  even  professed  to 
fight  the  Turks.  But  their  church  is  still  there,  with  their  trophies, 
which  I  went  and  admired ;  and  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any- 
thing in  Pisa  which  gives  you  a  more  vivid  notion  of  her  glory  in 
the  past  than  those  flags  taken  from  the  infidels  and  those  carvings 
that  once  enriched  her  galleys.  These  and  the  ship-yards  by  the 
Arno,  from  which  her  galleys  were  launched,  do  really  recall  the 
majesty  and  dominion  of  the  sea  which  once  was  hers  —  and  then 
Genoa's,  and  then  Venice's,  and  then  the  Hanseatic  Cities',  and  then 
Holland's,  and  then  England's ;  and  shall  be  ours  when  the  Moral 
Force  of  the  American  Navy  is  appreciated.  At  present  Pisa  and 
the  United  States  are  equally  formidable  as  maritime  powers,  unless 
indeed  this  conveys  too  strong  an  impression  of  the  decay  of  Pisa. 

VII. 

Issuing  from  the  Church  of  the  Cavaliers  I  found  myself  in  the 
most  famous  spot  in  the  whole  city:  the  wide  dusty  square  where 
the  Tower  of  Famine  once  stood,  and  where  you  may  still  see  a 
palace  with  iron  baskets  swung  from  the  corners  of  the  facade,  in 
which  it  is  said  the  wicked  Archbishop  Euggieri  used  to  put  the 
heads  of  traitors.  It  may  not  be  his  palace,  and  the  baskets  may 
not  have  been  used  for  this  purpose  ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  this 
was  the  site  of  the  tower,  which  was  not  demolished  till  1655,  and 
that  here  it  was  that  Ugolino  and  his  children  and  grandchildren 
cruelly  perished. 

The  writer  of  an  excellent  little  local  guide  to  Pisa,  which  I 
bought  on  my  first  visit,  says  that  Dante  has  told  the  story  of  Count 
Ugolino  della  Gherardesca,  and  that  "after  Dante,  God  alone  can 
repeat  it."  Yet  I  fancy  the  tragedy  will  always  have  a  fascination 
to  the  scribbler  who  visits  Pisa,  irresistibly  tempting  him  to  recall 


214  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

it  to  his  reader.     I  for  my  part  shall  not  do  less  than  remind  him 
that  Ugolino  was  Captain  of  the  People  and  Podesta  of  Pisa  at  the 
time  of  her  great  defeat  by  Genoa  in  1284,  when  so  many  of  her 
best  and  bravest  were  carried  off  prisoners  that  a  saying  arose,  "  If 
you  want  to  see  Pisa,  go  to  Genoa."     In  those  days  they  had  a  short 
and  easy  way  of  accounting  for  disaster,  which  has  been  much  prac- 
tised since  down  even  to  the  date  of  our  own  civil  war ;  they  attrib- 
uted it  to  treason,  and  in  this  case  they  were  pretty  clear  that 
Count  Ugolino  was  the  traitor.     He  sailed  away  with  his  squadron 
before  his  critics  thought  the  day  lost ;  and  after  the  battle,  in  his 
negotiations  with  Florence  and  Genoa  they  declared  that  he  behaved 
as  only  a  man  would  who  wished  to  ruin  his  country  in  order  to  rule 
her.     He  had  already  betrayed  his  purpose  of  founding  an  hereditary 
lordship  in  Pisa,  as  the  Visconti  had  done  in  Milan  and  the  Scaligeri 
in  Verona,  and  to  this  end  had  turned  Guelph  from  being  ancestrally 
Ghibelline ;  for  his  name  is  one  of  the  three  still  surviving  in  Tus- 
cany of  the  old  German  nobility  founded  there  by  the  emperors.     He 
was  a  man  of  furious  and  ruthless  temper ;  he  had  caused  one  of  his 
nephews  to  be  poisoned,  he  stabbed  another,  and  when  the  young 
man's  friend,  a  nephew  of  the  Archbishop,  would  have  defended  him, 
Ugolino  killed  him  with  his  own  hand.     The  Archbishop,  as  a  Ghi- 
belline, was  already  no  friend  of  Ugolino's,  and  here  now  was  blood- 
shed between  them.     "  And  what  happened  to  Count  Ugolino  a  little 
after;'  says  the  Florentine  chronicler,  Villani,  "was  prophesied  by 
a  wise  and  worthy  man  of  the  court,  Marco  Lombardo ;  for  when 
the  count  was  chosen  by  all  to  be  Lord  of  Pisa,  and  when  he  was  in 
his  highest  estate  and  felicity,  he  made  himself  a  splendid  birthday 
feast,  where  he  had  his  children  and  grandchildren  and  all  his  line- 
age, kinsmen  and  kinswomen,  with  great  pomp  of  apparel,  and  orna- 
ment,  and    preparation   for  a  rich   banquet.     The  count  took   this 
Marco,  and  went  about  showing  him  his  possessions  and  splendor, 
and  the  preparation  for  the  feast,  and  that  done,  he  said,  '  What  do 
you  think  of  it,  Marco  ? '     The  sage  answered  at  once,  and  said,  '  You 
are  fitter  for  evil  chance  than  any  baron  of  Italy.'     And  the  count, 
afraid  of  Marco's  meaning,  asked,  'Why?'     And  Marco  answered, 


PITILESS  PISA.  215 

'  Because  you  lack  nothing  but  the  wrath  of  God.'  And  surely  the 
wrath  of  God  quickly  fell  upon  him,  as  it  pleased  God,  for  his  sins  and 
treasons ;  for  as  it  had  been  intended  by  the  Archbishop  of  Pisa  and 
his  party  to  drive  out  of  Pisa  Nino  and  his  followers,  and  betray 
and  entrammel  Ugolino,  and  weaken  the  Guelphs,  the  Archbishop 
ordered  Count  Ugolino  to  be  undone,  and  immediately  set  the  people 
on  in  their  fury  to  attack  and  take  his  palace,  giving  the  people  to 
understand  that  he  had  betrayed  Pisa,  and  surrendered  their  castles 
to  the  Florentines  and  Lucchese ;  and  finding  the  people  upon  him, 
without  hope  of  escape,  Ugolino  gave  himself  up,  and  in  this  assault 
his  bastard  son  and  one  of  his  grandchildren  were  killed ;  and  Ugo- 
lino being  taken,  and  two  of  his  sons  and  two  of  his  son's  sons,  they 
threw  them  in  prison,  and  drove  his  family  and  his  followers  out  of 
Pisa.  .  .  .  The  Pisans,  who  had  thrown  in  prison  Ugolino  and  his 
two  sons,  and  two  sons  of  his  son  Count  Guelfo,  as  we  have  before 
mentioned,  in  a  tower  on  the  Piazza  degli  Anziani,  caused  the  door 
of  the  tower  to  be  locked  and  the  keys  to  be  thrown  into  the  Arno, 
and  forbidding  these  captives  all  food,  in  a  few  days  they  perished  of 
hunger.  But  first,  the  count  imploring  a  confessor,  they  would  not 
allow  him  a  friar  or  priest  that  he  might  confess.  And  all  five 
being  taken  out  of  the  tower  together,  they  were  vilely  buried ;  and 
from  that  time  the  prison  was  called  the  Tower  of  Famine,  and  will 
be  so  always.  For  this  cruelty  the  Pisans  were  strongly  blamed  by 
the  whole  world,  wherever  it  was  known,  not  so  much  for  the  count, 
who  for  his  crimes  and  treasons  was  perhaps  worthy  of  such  a  death, 
but  for  his  sons  and  grandsons,  who  were  young,  boys,  and  innocent ; 
and  this  sin,  committed  by  the  Pisans,  did  not  remain  unpunished, 
as  may  be  seen  in  after  time." 

A  monograph  on  Ugolino  by  an  English  writer  states  that  the  vic- 
tims were  rolled  in  the  matting  of  their  prison  floor  and  interred, 
with  the  irons  still  on  their  limbs,  in  the  cloister  of  the  church  of 
San  Francesco.  The  grave  was  opened  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  the  irons  taken  out ;  again,  in  1822,  the  remains  were  found  and 
carelessly  thrown  together  in  a  spot  marked  by  a  stone  bearing  the 
name  of  Vannuchi.     Of  the  prison  where  they  suffered,  no  more 


216  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

remains  now  than  of  the  municipal  eagles  which  the  Eepublic  put 
to  moult  there,  and  from  which  it  was  called  the  Moulting  Tower 
before  it  was  called  the  Tower  of  Famine. 


VIII. 

The  memory  of  that  curious  literary  conjunction  which  once  took 
place  at  Pisa,  when  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Leigh  Hunt  met  there  to 
establish  an  English  review  on  Italian  ground,  imparts  to  the  old 
city  an  odor,  faint  now  and  very  vague,  of  the  time  when  Komance 
was  new  enough  to  seem  immortal ;  but  I  could  do  little  with  this 
association,  as  an  element  of  my  impression.  They  will  point  you 
out,  if  you  wish,  the  palace  in  which  Byron  lived  on  the  Lung'  Arno, 
but  as  I  would  not  have  gone  to  look  at  a  palace  with  Byron  alive  in 
it,  I  easily  excused  myself  for  not  hunting  up  this  one  of  the  resi- 
dences with  which  he  left  Italy  swarming.  The  Shelleys  lived  first 
in  a  villa,  four  miles  off  under  the  hills,  but  were  washed  out  of  it  in 
one  of  the  sudden  inundations  of  the  country,  and  spent  the  rest  of 
their  sojourn  in  the  city,  where  Shelley  alarmed  his  Italian  friends 
by  launching  on  the  Arno  in  a  boat  he  had  contrived  of  pitched  can- 
vas and  lath.  His  companion  in  this  perilous  navigation  was  that 
Mr.  Williams  with  whom  he  was  afterwards  drowned  in  Spezzia  Bay. 
"  Once,"  writes  Mrs.  Shelley,  "  I  went  down  with  him  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Arno,  where  the  stream,  then  high  and  swift,  met  the  tideless 
sea  and  disturbed  its  sluggish  waters.  It  was  a  waste  and  dreary 
scene ;  the  desert  sand  stretched  into  a  point  surrounded  by  waves 
that  broke  idly  but  perpetually  around." 

At  Pisa  there  is  nothing  of  this  wildness  or  strife  in  the  Arno,  not 
so  much  as  at  Florence,  where  it  rushes  and  brawls  down  its  channel 
and  over  its  dams  and  ripples.  Its  waters  are  turbid,  almost  black, 
but  smooth,  and  they  slip  oilily  away  with  many  a  wreathing  eddy, 
round  the  curve  of  the  magnificent  quay,  to  which  my  mind  recurs 
still  as  the  noblest  thing  in  Pisa ;  as  the  noblest  thing,  indeed,  that 
any  city  has  done  with  its  river.  But  what  quick  and  sensitive 
allies  of  Nature  the  Italians  have  always  shown  themselves !     No 


PITILESS  PISA. 


217 


suggestion  of  hers  has  been  thrown  away  on  them ;  they  have  made 
the  most  of  her  lavish  kindness,  and  transmuted  it  into  the  glory  and 
the  charm  of  art.  Our  last  moments  of  sight-seeing  in  Pisa  were 
spent  in  strolling  beside  the  river,  in  hanging  on  the  parapet  and 
delighting  in  the  lines  of  that  curve. 

At  one  end  of  the  city,  before  this  begins,  near  a  spick-and-span 
new  iron  bridge,  is  the  mediaeval  tower  of  the  galley  prison,  which 
we  found  exquisitely  picturesque  in  the  light  of  our  last  morning ; 
and  then,  stretching  up  towards  the  heart  of  the  town  from  this 
tower,  were  the  ship-yards,  with  the  sheds  in  which  the  old  republic 
built  the  galleys  she  launched  on  every  sea  then  known.  They  are 
used  now  for  military  stables ;  they  are  not  unlike  the  ordinary 
horse-car  stables  of  our  civilization ;  and  the  grooms,  swabbing  the 
legs  of  the  horses  and  combing  their  manes,  were  naturalized  to  our 
homesick  sympathies  by  the  homely  community  of  their  functions 
with  those  I  had  so  often  stopped  to  admire  in  my  own  land.  There 
is  no  doubt  but  the  toilet  of  a  horse  is  something  that  interests  every 
human  being. 


RELIEF   FROM   PIAZZA   DELIA   SIGNORIA. 


INDUSTRIOUS    LUCCA. 


INDUSTRIOUS    LUCCA. 


WITH  rather  less  than  the  ordinary  stupidity  of  tourists,  wretched 
slaves  of  routine  as  they  are,  we  had  imagined  the  possibility 
of  going  to  Lucca  overland ;  that  is,  of  driving  fifteen  miles  across 
the  country  instead  of  taking  the  train.  It  would  be  as  three  hours 
against  twenty  minutes,  and  as  fifteen  francs  against  two ;  but  my 
friend  was  young  and  I  was  imprudent,  and  we  boldly  ventured  upon 
the  expedition.  I  have  never  regretted  it,  which  is  what  can  be  said 
of,  alas,  how  few  pleasures  !  On  the  contrary,  it  is  rapture  to  think 
of  it  still. 

Already,  at  eight  o'clock  of  the  April  morning,  the  sun  had  filled 
the  city  with  a  sickening  heat,  which  intimated  pretty  clearly  what 
it  might  do  for  Pisa  in  August ;  but  when  we  had  mounted  superbly 
to  our  carriage-seats,  after  pensioning  all  the  bystanders,  and  had 
driven  out  of  the  city  into  the  green  plain  beyond  the  walls,  we 
found  it  a  delicious  spring  day,  warm,  indeed,  but  full  of  a  fervent 
life. 

We  had  issued  from  the  gate  nearest  the  Four  Fabrics,  and  I  ad- 
vise the  reader  to  get  that  view  of  them  if  he  can.  To  the  backward 
glance  of  the  journeyer  toward  Lucca,  they  have  the  unity,  the  en- 
semble, the  want  of  which  weakens  their  effect  to  proximity.  Beside 
us  swept  the  great  level  to  the  blue-misted  hills  on  our  right ;  before 
us  it  stretched  indefinitely.  From  the  grass,  the  larks  were  quiver- 
ing up  to  the  perfect  heaven,  and  the  sympathy  of  Man  with  the 
tender  and  lovely  mood  of  Nature  was  expressed  in  the  presence  of 


222  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

the  hunters  with  their  dogs,  who  were  exploring  the  herbage  in  quest 
of  something  to  kill. 

Perhaps  I  do  man  injustice.  Perhaps  the  rapture  of  the  blameless 
litterateur  and  artist,  who  drove  along  crying  out  over  the  exquisite 
beauty  of  the  scene,  was  more  justly  representative  of  our  poor  race. 
1  am  vexed  now,  when  I  think  how  brief  this  rapture  was,  and  how 
much  it  might  have  been  prolonged  if  we  had  bargained  with  our 
driver  to  go  slow.  We  had  bargained  for  everything  else ;  but  who 
could  have  imagined  that  one  Italian  could  ever  have  been  fast 
enough  for  two  Americans  ?  He  was  even  too  fast.  He  had  a  just 
pride  in  his  beast,  —  as  tough  as  the  iron  it  was  the  color  of,  —  and 
when  implored,  in  the  interest  of  natural  beauty,  not  to  urge  it  on, 
he  misunderstood  ;  he  boasted  that  it  could  keep  up  that  pace  all 
day,  and  he  incited  it  in  the  good  Tuscan  of  Pisa  to  go  faster  yet. 
Ah  me !  What  enchanting  villas  he  whirled  us  by !  What  gray 
chateaux  !  What  old  wayside  towers,  hoary  out  of  all  remembrance  ! 
What  delightfully  stupid-looking  little  stony  picturesque  villages,  in 
every  one  of  which  that  poor  artist  and  I  would  have  been  glad  to 
spend  the  whole  day !  But  the  driver  could  not  snatch  the  broad 
and  constant  features  of  the  landscape  from  us  so  quickly  ;  these  we 
had  time  to  peruse  and  imprint  forever  on  our  memories :  the  green 
expanses,  the  peach-trees  pink  in  their  bloom ;  the  plums  and  cherries 
putting  on  their  bridal  white;  the  gray  road,  followed  its  whole 
length  by  the  vines  trained  from  trees  to  tall  stakes  across  a  space 
which  they  thus  embowered  continuously  from  field  to  field.  Every- 
where the  peasants  were  working  the  soil ;  spading,  not  plowing 
their  acres,  and  dressing  it  to  the  smoothness  of  a  garden.  It  looked 
rich  and  fertile,  and  the  whole  land  wore  an  air  of  smiling  prosperity 
which  I  cannot  think  it  put  on  expressly  for  us. 

Pisa  seemed  hardly  to  have  died  out  of  the  horizon  before  her 
ancient  enemy  began  to  rise  from  the  other  verge,  beyond  the  little 
space  in  which  they  used  to  play  bloodily  at  national  hostilities. 
The  plain  narrowed  as  we  approached,  and  hills  hemmed  us  in  on 
three  sides,  with  snow-capped  heights  in  the  background,  from  which 
the  air  blew  cooler  and  cooler.     It  was  only  eleven  o'clock,  and  we 


INDUSTRIOUS  LUCCA.  223 

would  gladly  have  been  all  day  on  the  road.  But  we  pretended 
to  be  pleased  with  the  mistaken  zeal  that  had  hurried  us ;  it  was 
so  amiable,  we  could  not  help  it ;  and  we  entered  Lucca  with  the 
smiling  resolution  to  make  the  most  of  it. 


II. 

Lucca  lies  as  flat  as  Pisa,  but  in  shape  it  is  as  regularly  oblong  as 
that  is  square,  and  instead  of  the  brick  wall,  which  we  had  grown 
fond  of  there  and  in  Siena,  it  has  a  girdle  of  gray  stone,  deeply 
moated  without,  and  broadly  levelled  on  top,  where  a  lovely  driveway 
winds  round  the  ancient  town.  The  wall  juts  in  a  score  of  angles, 
and  the  projecting  spaces  thus  formed  are  planted  with  groups  of 
forest  trees,  lofty  and  old,  and  giving  a  charm  to  the  promenade 
exquisitely  wild  and  rare. 

To  our  approach,  the  clustering  city  towers  and  roofs  promised 
a  picturesqueness  which  she  kept  in  her  own  fashion  when  we  drove 
in  through  her  gates,  and  were  set  down,  after  a  dramatic  rattling 
and  banging  through  her  streets,  at  the  door  of  the  Universo,  or  the 
Croce  di  Malta,  —  I  do  not  really  remember  which  hotel  it  was.  But 
I  remember  very  well  the  whole  domestic  force  of  the  inn  seemed  to 
be  concentrated  in  the  distracted  servant  who  gave  us  our  rooms, 
and  was  landlord,  porter,  accountant,  waiter,  and  chambermaid  all 
in  one.  It  was  an  inn  apparently  very  little  tainted  by  tourist 
custom,  and  Lucca  is  certainly  one  of  the  less  discovered  of  the 
Tuscan  cities.  At  the  table  d'hdte  in  the  evening  our  commensals 
were  all  Italians  except  an  ancient  English  couple,  who  had  lived 
so  long  in  that  region  that  they  had  rubbed  off  everything  English 
but  their  speech.  I  wondered  a  good  deal  who  they  could  be ;  they 
spoke  conservatively  —  the  foreigners  are  always  conservative  in 
Italy  —  of  the  good  old  ducal  days  of  Lucca,  when  she  had  her  own 
mild  little  despot,  and  they  were  now  going  to  the  Baths  of  Lucca  to 
place  themselves  for  the  summer.  They  were  types  of  a  class  which 
is  numerous  all  over  the  continent,  and  which  seems  thoroughly 
'content  with  expatriation.     The  Europeanized  American  is  always 


224  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

apologetic ;  he  says  that  America  is  best,  and  he  pretends  that  he  is 
going  back  there ;  but  the  continentalized  Englishman  has  apparently 
no  intention  of  repatriating  himself.  He  has  said  to  me  frankly  in 
one  instance  that  England  was  beastly.  But  I  own  I  should  not  like 
to  have  said  it  to  him. 

In  their  talk  of  the  ducal  past  of  Lucca  these  English  people 
struck  again  the  note  which  my  first  impression  of  Lucca  had 
sounded.  Lucca  was  a  sort  of  republic  for  nearly  a  thousand  years, 
with  less  interruption  from  lords,  bishops,  and  foreign  dominions 
than  most  of  her  sister  commonwealths,  and  she  kept  her  ancient 
liberties  down  to  the  time  of  the  French  revolution  —  four  hundred 
years  longer  than  Pisa,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  longer  than 
Florence  and  Siena ;  as  long,  in  fact,  as  Venice,  which  she  resembled 
in  an  arbitrary  change  effected  from  a  democratic  to  an  aristocratic 
constitution  at  the  moment  when  the  change  was  necessary  to  her 
existence  as  an  independent  state.  The  duchy  of  Lucca  created  by 
the  Congress  of  Vienna,  1817,  and  assigned  to  the  Bourbons  of 
Parma,  lasted  only  thirty  years,  when  it  was  merged  by  previous 
agreement  in  the  grand  duchy  of  Tuscany,  the  Bourbons  going  back 
to  Parma,  in  which  Napoleon's  Austrian  widow  had  meantime 
enjoyed  a  life  interest.  In  this  brief  period,  however,  the  old  repub- 
lican city  assumed  so  completely  the  character  of  a  little  principality, 
that  in  spite  of  the  usual  Via  Garibaldi  and  Corso  Vittorio  Emanuele, 
I  could  not  banish  the  image  of  the  ducal  state  from  my  mind.  Yet 
I  should  be  at  a  loss  how  to  impart  this  feeling  to  every  one,  or  to 
say  why  a  vast  dusty  square,  planted  with  pollarded  sycamores,  and 
a  huge,  ugly  palace  with  but  a  fairish  gallery  of  pictures,  fronting 
upon  the  dust  and  sycamores,  should  have  been  so  expressive  of  a 
ducal  residence.  There  was  a  statue  of  Maria  Louisa,  the  first  ruler 
of  the  temporary  duchy,  in  the  midst  of  these  sycamores,  and  I  had 
a  persistent  whimsey  of  her  reviewing  her  little  ducal  army  there, 
as  I  sat  and  looked  out  from  the  open  door  of  the  restaurant  where 
my  friend  and  I  were  making  the  acquaintance  of  a  number  of 
strange  dishes  and  trying  our  best  to  be  friends  with  the  Lucchese 
conception  of  a  beefsteak. 


INDUSTRIOUS  LUCCA. 


225 


It  was  not  because  I  had  no  other  periods  to  choose  from ;  in  Lucca 
you  can  be  overwhelmed  with  them.  Her  chronicles  do  not  indeed 
go  back  into  the  mists  of  fable  for  her  origin,  but  they  boast  an 
Etruscan,  a  Eoman  antiquity  which  is  hardly  less  formidable.     Here 


ifi 


#1  A 


vr 


in  a.  u.  515  there  was  fixed  a  col- 
ony of  two  thousand  citizens ;  here 
in  698  the  great  Caesar  met  with 
£-rr''/-  Pompey  and   Crassus,   and   settled 

who  should  rule  in  Eome.  After  the  Eomans,  she  knew  the  Goths, 
the  Lombards,  and  the  Franks ;  then  she  had  her  own  tyrants,  and 
in  the  twelfth  century  she  began  to  have  her  own  consuls,  the  magis- 
trates of  her  people's  choice,  and  to  have  her  wars  within  and  without, 
to  be  torn  with  faction  and  menaced  with  conquest  in  the  right  Italian 
fashion.  Once  she  was  sacked  by  the  Pisans  under  the  terrible 
Uguccione  della  Fagginola,  in  1314;  and  more  than  once  she  was 
sold.  She  was  sold  for  thirty-five  thousand  florins  to  two  ambi- 
tious and  enterprising  gentlemen,  the  Eossi  brothers,  of  Parma,  who, 

15 


226  TUSCAN   CITIES. 

however,  were  obliged  to  relinquish  her  to  the  Scaligeri  of  Verona. 
This  was  the  sorrow  and  shame  that  fell  upon  her  after  a  brief  fever 
of  conquest  and  glory,  brought  her  by  the  greatest  of  her  captains,  the 
famous  Castruccio  Castracani,  the  condottiere,  whose  fierce,  death- 
white  face,  bordered  by  its  pale  yellow  hair,  looks  more  vividly  out 
of  the  history  of  his  time  than  any  other.  For  Castruccio  had  been 
in  prison,  appointed  to  die,  and  when  the  rising  of  the  Lucchese 
delivered  him,  and  made  him  Lord  of  Lucca,  Uguccione's  fetters 
were  still  upon  him.  He  was  of  the  ancient  Ghibelline  family  of  the 
Antelminelli,  who  had  prospered  to  great  wealth  in  England,  where 
they  spent  a  long  exile  and  where  Castruccio  learned  the  art  of  war. 
After  his  death  one  of  his  sons  sold  his  dominion  to  another  for 
twenty-two  thousand  florins,  from  whom  his  German  garrison  took 
vit  and  sold  it  for  sixty  thousand  to  Gherardo  Spinola ;  he,  in  turn, 
disposed  of  it  to  the  Eossi,  at  a  clear  loss  of  thirty-eight  thousand 
florins.  The  Lucchese  suffered  six  years  under  the  Scaligeri,  who 
sold  them  again  —  the  market  price  this  time  is  not  quoted  —  to  the 
Florentines,  whom  the  Pisans  drove  out.  These  held  her  in  a  servi- 
tude so  cruel  that  the  Lucchese  called  it  their  Babylonian  captivity, 
and  when  it  was  ended  after  twenty  years,  through  the  intervention 
of  the  Emperor  Charles  IV.,  in  1369,  they  were  obliged  to  pay  the 
German  a  hundred  thousand  florins  for  their  liberty,  which  had  been 
sold  so  many  times  for  far  less  money. 

An  ancient  Lucchese  family,  the  Guanigi,  whose  Gothic  palaces  are 
still  the  most  beautiful  in  the  city,  now  rose  to  power,  and  held  it 
till  1430 ;  and  then  the  city  finally  established  the  republican  gov- 
ernment, which  in  its  democratic  and  oligarchic  form  continued 
till  1799. 

The  noblest  event  of  this  long  period  was  the  magnanimous  at- 
tempt of  the  gonfaloniere,  Francesco  Burlamacchi,  who  in  1546 
dreamed  of  driving  the  Medici  from  power  and  re-establishing  the 
republic  throughout  Tuscany.  Burlamacchi  was  of  an  old  patrician 
family,  but  the  love  of  freedom  had  been  instilled  in  him  by  his 
uncle,  Filippo  Burlamacchi,  that  Fra  Pacifico  who  wrote  the  first 
life  of  Savonarola  and  was  one  of  his  most  fervent  disciples.     The 


INDUSTRIOUS  LUCCA.  227 

gonfaloniere's  plot  was  discovered ;  and  he  was  arrested  by  the  timid 
Lucchese  Senate,  which  hastened  to  assure  the  ferocious  Cosimo  I. 
that  they  were  guiltless  of  complicity.  The  imperial  commissioner 
came  from  Milan  to  preside  at  his  trial,  and  he  was  sentenced  to 
suffer  death  for  treason  to  the  empire.  He  was  taken  to  Milan  and 
beheaded ;  but  now  he  is  the  greatest  name  in  Lucca,  and  his  statue 
in  the  piazza,  fronting  her  ancient  communal  palace,  appeals  to  all 
who  love  freedom  with  the  memory  of  his  high  intent.  He  died  in 
the  same  cause  which  Savonarola  laid  down  his  life  for,  and  not  less 
generously. 

Poor  little  Lucca  had  not  even  the  courage  to  attempt  to  save  him ; 
but  doubtless  she  would  have  tried  if  she  had  dared.  She  was  under 
the  special  protection  of  the  emperors,  having  paid  Maximilian  and 
then  Charles  V.  good  round  sums  for  the  confirmation  of  her  early 
liberties ;  and  she  was  so  anxious  to  be  well  with  the  latter,  that 
when  she  was  accused  to  him  of  favoring  the  new  Lutheran  heresy 
she  hastened  to  persecute  the  Protestants  with  the  same  cowardice 
that  she  had  shown  in  abandoning  Burlamacchi. 

It  cost,  indeed,  no  great  effort  to  suppress  the  Protestant  congrega- 
tion at  Lucca.  Peter  Martyr,  its  founder,  had  fled  before,  and  was 
now  a  professor  at  Strasburg,  whence  he  wrote  a  letter  of  severe 
upbraiding  to  the  timorous  flock  who  suffered  themselves  to  be  fright- 
ened back  to  Eome.  Some  of  them  would  not  renounce  their  faith, 
preferring  exile,  and  of  these,  who  emigrated  by  families,  were  the 
Burlamacchi,  from  whom  the  hero  came.  He  had  counted  somewhat 
upon  the  spirit  of  the  Eeformation  to  help  him  in  his  design  against 
the  Medici,  knowing  it  to  be  the  spirit  of  freedom,  but  there  is  no 
one  evidence  that  he  was  himself  more  a  Protestant  than  Savonarola 
was. 

Eight  years  after  his  death  the  constitution  of  Lucca  was  changed, 
and  she  fell  under  the  rule  of  an  aristocracy  nicknamed  the  Lords  of 
the  Little  King,  from  the  narrow  circle  in  which  her  senators  suc- 
ceeded one  another.  She  had  always  been  called  Lucca  the  Indus- 
trious ;  in  her  safe  subordination,  she  now  worked  and  throve  for  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  till  the  French  republicans  came  and  toppled 


228  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

her  oligarchy  over  at  a  touch.  James  Howell,  writing  one  of  his 
delightful  letters  from  Florence  in  1621,  gives  us  some  notion  of 
Lucca  as  she  appeared  to  the  polite  traveller  of  that  day. 

"  There  is  a  notable  active  little  Kepublic  towards  the  midst  of 
Tuscany,"  he  says,  "  called  Lucca,  which,  in  regard  she  is  under  the 
Emperour's  protection,  he  dares  not  meddle  with,  though  she  lie  as 
a  Partridg  under  a  Faulcon's  wings,  in  relation  to  the  grand  Duke ; 
besides  there  is  another  reason  of  the  State  why  he  meddles  not  with 
her,  because  she  is  more  beneficial  unto  him  now  that  she  is  free,  and 
more  industrious  to  support  this  freedom,  than  if  she  were  become 
his  vassal ;  for  then  it  is  probable  she  would  grow  more  careless  and 
idle,  and  so  would  not  vent  his  comodities  so  soon,  which  she  buys 
for  ready  mony,  wherein  most  of  her  wealth  consists.  There  is 
no  State  that  winds  the  peny  more  nimbly  and  makes  a  quicker 
return." 

Lasells,  who  visited  Lucca  a  little  earlier,  tells  us  that  it  "hath 
thirty  thousand  Muskets  or  half  Muskets  in  its  Arsenal,  eight  thou- 
sand Pikes,  two  thousand  Brest  Pieces  of  Musket  proof,  and  store  of 
great  Artillery.  The  whole  State,  for  a  need,  can  arm  eighteen  thou- 
sand men  of  service ; "  but  Lucca  appears  to  have  become  the  joke 
and  by-word  of  her  neighbors  more  and  more  as  time  went  on.  At 
Florence  they  told  of  a  prima-donna  who,  when  she  gesticulated  in 
opera  at  Lucca,  flung  her  arms  beyond  the  borders  of  the  republic. 
An  ignominious  peace,  timid,  selfish,  prudent,  was  her  condition  from 
the  time  the  aristocratic  change  took  place.  For  two  centuries  she 
was  preparing  for  that  Bourbon  despotism  which  characterized  her 
even  physically  to  my  fancy.  "  An  absolute  government,"  says  my 
Lucchese  guide-book,  "  but  of  mild  temper,  which  might  have  been 
more  beneficent  if  it  had  been  inspired  by  views  less  narrow.  Yet  it 
was  a  notable  period  of  our  history  for  municipal  activity  and  for 
public  works,  which  in  proportion  to  the  smallness  of  the  country 
may  also  be  called  great ;  the  city  secured  by  vast  and  well-planned 
defences  against  the  inundations  of  the  Serchio;  the  country  trav- 
ersed in  every  direction  by  carriage-roads  ;  abundance  of  the  best 
water  for  use  and  beauty  brought  to  the  city  by  a  monumental  work 


INDUSTRIOUS  LUCCA. 


229 


of  art ;  an  ample  highway  across  the  Apennines,  to  communicate 
with  Modena  and  Lombardy ;  bridges,  ornamental  and  convenient, 
of  stone  and  iron." 

III. 

Of  mediaeval  Lucca  I  have  kept  fresh- 
est the  sense  of  her  Gothic  church  archi- 
tecture, with  its  delicate  difference  from 
that  of  Pisa,  which  it  resembles  and 
excels.  It  is  touched  with  the  Lom- 
bardic  and  Byzantine  character,  while 
keeping  its  own ;  here  are  the  pillars 
resting  on  the  backs  of  lions  and  leop- 
ards ;  here  are  the  quaint  mosaics  in  the 
facades.  You  see  the  former  in  the 
cathedral,  which  is  not  signally  remark- 
able, like  that  of  Florence,  or  Siena,  or 
Pisa,  and  the  latter  in  the  beautiful  old 
church  of  San  Frediano,  an  Irish  saint 
who  for  some  reason  figured  in  Lucca ; 
he  was  bishop  there  in  the  fifth  century, 
and  the  foundation  of  his  church  dates 
only  a  century  or  two  later.  San  Michele 
is  an  admirable  example  of  Lucchese 
gothic,  and  is  more  importantly  placed 
than  any  other  church,  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  town  opposite  the  Palazzo  Pretorio. 
This  structure  was  dedicated  to  the  occu- 
pation of  the  Podesta  of  Lucca,  in  pur- 
suance of  the  republic's  high-languaged 
decree,  recognizing  the  fact  that  "  among 
the  ornaments  with  which  cities  embel- 
lish themselves,  the  greatest  expenditure 
should  always  be  devoted  to  those  where 
the  deities  are  worshipped,  the  magistracy     the  clock  tower  of  lucca. 


ik1 

l-vcu 


230  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

administers  justice,  and  the  people  convenes."  The  Palazzo  Pretorio 
is  now  the  repository  of  a  public  archaeological  collection,  and  the 
memory  of  its  original  use  has  so  utterly  perished  that  the  com- 
bined intellects  of  two  policemen,  whom  we  appealed  to  for  infor- 
mation, could  not  assign  to  it  any  other  function  than  that  of 
lottery  office,  appointed  by  the  late  grand  duke.  The  popular  in- 
tellect at  Lucca  is  not  very  vivid,  so  far  as  we  tested  it,  and  though 
willing,  it  is  not  quick.  The  caffetiera  in  whose  restaurant  we 
took  breakfast,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Pretorian  Palace  walls, 
was  as  ignorant  of  its  history  as  the  policemen ;  but  she  was  very 
amiable,  and  she  had  three  pretty  daughters  in  the  bon-bon  de- 
partment, who  looked  the  friendliest  disposition  to  know  about  it 
if  they  could. 

I  speak  of  them  at  once,  because  I  did  not  think  the  Lucchese 
generally  such  handsome  people  as  the  Pisans,  and  I  wish  to 
be  generous  before  I  am  just.  Why,  indeed,  should  I  be  severe 
with  the  poor  Lucchese  in  any  way,  even  for  their  ignorance, 
when  the  infallible  Baedeker  himself  speaks  of  the  statue  in  the 
Piazza  S.  Michele  as  that  of  "  S.  Burlamacchi"  ?  The  hero  thus 
canonized  stood  frowning  down  upon  a  grain  and  seed  market  when 
we  went  to  offer  him  our  homage,  and  the  peasants  thought  we  had 
come  to  buy,  and  could  not  understand  why  we  should  have  only  a 
minor  curiosity  about  their  wares.  They  took  the  wheat  up  in  their 
brown  hands  to  show  us,  and  boasted  of  its  superior  quality.  "We 
said  we  were  strangers,  and  explained  that  we  had  no  intention  of 
putting  in  a  crop  of  that  sort;  but  they  only  laughed  blankly.  In 
spite  of  this  prevailing  ignorance,  penetrating  even  to  the  Baedeker 
in  our  hands,  Lucca  was  much  tableted  to  the  memory  of  her  celeb- 
rities, especially  her  literary  celebrities,  who  need  tablets  as  greatly 
as  any  literary  celebrities  I  know.  There  was  one  literary  lady 
whose  tablet  I  saw  in  a  church,  and  whom  the  local  Scientific  and 
Literary  Academy  proclaimed  "  the  marvel  of  her  age  "  for  her  learn- 
ing and  her  gifts  in  improvisation.  The  reader  will  readily  identify 
her  from  this ;  or  if  he  cannot,  the  greater  shame  to  him ;  he  might 
as  well  be  a  Lucchese. 


INDUSTRIOUS  LUCCA.  231 

"  All  there  are  barrators,  except  Bontura  ; 
No  into  yes  for  money  there  is  changed," 

says  Dante  of  this  Lucca  in  which  I  found  an  aspect  of  busy 
commonplace,  an  air  of  thrift  and  traffic,  and  in  which  I  only  feign 
to  have  discovered  an  indifference  to  finer  things.  I  dare  say  Lucca 
is  full  of  intelligence  and  polite  learning;  but  she  does  not  imbue 
her  policemen  and  caffctieras  with  it,  as  Boston  does.  Yet  I  would 
willingly  be  at  this  moment  in  a  town  where  I  could  step  out  and  see 
an  old  Eoman  amphitheatre,  built  bodily  up  into  the  modern  city, 
and  showing  its  mighty  ribs  through  the  houses  surrounding  the 
market-place,  —  a  market-place  quaint  beyond  any  other,  with  its 
tile-roofed  stands  and  booths.  There  is  much  more  silk  in  Lucca 
than  in  Boston,  if  we  have  the  greater  culture ;  and  the  oil  of  Lucca 
is  sublime;  and  —  yes,  I  will  own  it!  —  Lucca  has  the  finer  city 
wall.  The  town  showed  shabby  and  poor  from  the  driveway  along 
the  top  of  this,  for  we  saw  the  backyards  and  rears  of  the  houses ; 
but  now  and  then  we  looked  down  into  a  stiff,  formal,  delicious 
palace  garden,  full  of  weather-beaten  statues,  old,  bad,  ridiculous, 
divinely  dear  and  beautiful! 

I  cannot  say  that  I  have  been  hardly  used,  when  I  remember  that 
I  have  seen  such  gardens  as  those ;  and  I  humbly  confess  it  a  privi- 
lege to  have  walked  in  the  shadow  of  the  Guanigi  palaces  at  Lucca, 
in  which  the  gothic  seems  to  have  clone  its  best  for  a  stately  and 
lovely  effect.  I  even  climbed  to  the  top  of  one  of  their  towers,  which 
I  had  wondered  at  ever  since  my  first  sight  of  Lucca  because  of  the 
little  grove  it  bore  upon  its  crest.  I  asked  the  custodian  of  the 
palace  what  it  was,  and  he  said  it  was  a  little  garden,  which  I  sus- 
pected already.  But  I  had  a  consuming  desire  to  know  what  it 
looked  like,  and  what  Lucca  looked  like  from  it ;  and  I  asked  him 
how  high  the  tower  was.  He  answered  that  it  was  four  hundred 
feet  high,  which  I  doubted  at  first,  but  came  to  believe  when  I  had 
made  the  ascent.  I  hated  very  much  to  go  up  that  tower;  but  when 
the  custodian  said  that  an  English  lady  eighty  years  old  had  gone  up 
the  week  before,  I  said  to  myself  that  I  would  not  be  outdone  by  any 
old  lady  of  eighty,  and  I  went  up.     The  trees  were  really  rooted  in 


232 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


little  beds  of  earth  up  there,  and  had  been  growing  for  ten  years  ;  the 
people  of  the  house  sometimes  took  tea  under  them  in  the  summer 
evenings. 

This  tower  was  one  of  three  hundred  and  seventy  in  which  Lucca 
abounded  before  the  Guanigi  levelled  them.     They  were  for  the  con- 


Wv,  m 


!"1  '«•- 


THE   GUANIGI   TOWER. 


venience  of  private  warfare  ;  the  custodian  showed  me  a  little  chamber 
near  the  top,  where  he  pretended  the  garrison  used  to  stay.  I  en- 
joyed his  statement  as  much  as  if  it  were  a  fact,  and  I  enjoyed  still 


INDUSTRIOUS  LUCCA. 


233 


more  the  magnificent  prospect  of  the  city  and  country  from  the 
towers ;  the  fertile  plain  with  the  hills  all  round,  and  distant  moun- 
tains snow-crowned  except  to  the  south  where  the  valley  widened 
toward  Florence ;  the  multitudinous  roofs  and  bell-towers  of  the  city, 
which  filled  its  walls  full  of  human  habitations,  with  no  breadths  of 
orchard  and  field  as  at  Pisa  and  Siena. 

The  present  Count  Guanigi,  so  the  custodian  pretended,  lives  in 
another  palace,  and  lets  this  in  apartments  ;  you  may  have  the  finest 


A   STAIRWAY,   LUCCA. 


for  seventy-five  dollars  a  year,  with  privilege  of  sky-garden.  I  did 
not  think  it  dear,  and  I  said  so,  though  I  did  not  visit  any  of 
the  interiors  and  do  not  know  what  state  the  finest  of  them  may 
be  in. 


234 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


We  did,  however,  see  one  Lucchese  palace  throughout ;  the  Palazzo 
Mansi,  in  which  there  is  an  admirable  gallery  of  Dutch  pictures 
inherited  by  the  late  marquis  through  a  Dutch  marriage  made  by 
one  of  his  ancestors.  The  portrait  of  this  lady,  a  gay,  exuberant, 
eighteenth-century  blonde,  ornaments  the  wall  of  one  of  the  gilded 
and  tapestried  rooms  which  form  two  sides  of  the  palace  court. 
From  a  third,  standing  in  an  arcaded  passage,  you  look  across  this 
court,  gray  with  the  stone  of  which  the  edifice  is  built,  to  a  rich 
brown  mass  of  tiled  roofs,  and  receive  a  perfect  impression  of  the 
pride  and  state  in  which  life  was  lived  in  the  old  days  in  Lucca. 
It  is  a  palace  in  the  classic  taste ;  it  is  excellent  in  its  way,  and  it 
expresses  as  no  other  sort  of  edifice  can  the  splendors  of  an  aris- 
tocracy, after  it  has  ceased  to  be  feudal  and  barbaric,  and  become 
elegant  and  municipal.  What  laced  coats  and  bag-wigs,  what  hoops 
and  feathers  had  not  alighted  from  gilt  coaches  and  sedan-chairs  in 
that  silent  and  empty  court !  I  am  glad  to  be  plebeian  and  Ameri- 
can, a  citizen  of  this  enormous  democracy,  but  if  I  were  strictly  cross- 
examined,  would  I  not  like  also  to  be  a  Lord  of  the  Little  King  in 
Lucca,  a  marquis,  and  a  Mansi  ? 


PISTOJA,  PR  A  TO,  AND  FIESOLE. 


PISTOJA,  PRATO,  AND  FIESOLE. 


i. 

It  was  on  the  last  day  of  March,  after  our  return  from  Siena,  that 
I  ran  out  to  Pistoja  with  my  friend  the  artist.  There  were  now 
many  signs  of  spring  in  the  landscape,  and  the  gray  olives  were  a 
less  prevalent  tone,  amid  the  tints  of  the  peach  and  pear  blossoms. 
Dandelions  thickly  strewed  the  railroad-sides ;  the  grass  was  pow- 
dered with  the  little  daisies,  white  with  crimson-tipped  petals ;  the 
garden-borders  were  full  of  yellow  flowering  seed-turnips.  The 
peasants  were  spading  their  fields ;  as  we  ran  along,  it  came  noon, 
and  they  began  to  troop  over  the  white  roads  to  dinner,  past  villas 
frescoed  with  false  balconies  and  casements,  and  comfortable  brown- 
ish-gray farmsteads.  On  our  right  the  waves  of  distant  purple  hills 
swept  all  the  way  to  Pistoja. 

I  made  it  part  of  my  business  there  to  look  up  a  young  married 
couple,  Americans,  journeying  from  Venice  to  Florence,  who  stopped 
at  Pistoja  twenty  years  before,  and  saw  the  gray  town  in  the  gray 
light  of  a  spring  morning  between  four  and  six  o'clock.  I  remem- 
bered how  strange  and  beautiful  they  thought  it,  and  from  time  to 
time  I  started  with  recognition  of  different  objects  —  as  if  I  had  been 
one  of  that  pair ;  so  young,  so  simple-heartedly,  greedily  glad  of  all 
that  eld  and  story  which  Italy  constantly  lavished  upon  them.  I 
could  not  find  them,  but  I  found  phantom  traces  of  their  youth  in 
the  ancient  town,  and  that  endeared  it  to  me,  and  made  it  lovely 
through  every  hour  of  the  long  rainy  day  I  spent  there.  To  other 
eyes  it  might  have  seemed  merely  a  stony  old  town,  dull  and  cold 


238 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


under  the  lowering  sky,  with  a  locked-up  cathedral,  a  bare  baptis- 
tery, and  a  medieval  public  palace,  and  a  history  early  merged  in 
that  of  Florence ;  but  to  me  it  must  always  have  the  tender  interest 
of  the  pleasure,  pathetically  intense,  which  that  young  couple  took 

in  it.  They 
were  very  hun- 
gry, and  they 
could  get  no 
breakfast  in  the 
drowsy  town, 
not  even  a  cup 
of  coffee,  but 
they  did  not 
mind  that;  they 
wandered  about, 
famished  but 
blest,  and  by 
one  of  the  happy 
accidents  that 
usually  be- 
friended them, 
they  found  their 
way  up  to  the 
Piazza  del  Duo- 
mo  and  saw  the 
Communal  Palace  so  thoroughly,  in  all  its  gothic  fulness  and  mediae- 
val richness  of  detail,  that  I  seemed  never  to  have  risen  from  the 
stone  benching  around  the  interior  of  the  court  on  which  they  sat 
to  study  the  escutcheons  carven  and  painted  on  the  walls.  I  could 
swear  that  the  bear  on  the  arms  of  Pistoja  was  the  same  that 
they  saw  and  noted  with  the  amusement  which  a  bear  in  a  check- 
ered tabard  must  inspire  in  ignorant  minds;  though  I  am  now 
able  to  inform  the  reader  that  it  was  put  there  because  Pistoja  was 
anciently  infested  with  bears,  and  this  was  the  last  bear  left  when 
they  were  exterminated. 


ARMORIAL   BEARINGS   OF   THE   PODESTAS   IN   THE   PALAZZO 
COMMUNALE   AT   PISTOJA. 


PISTOJA,   PRATO,   AND  FIESOLE.  239 

We  need  not  otherwise  go  deeply  into  the  history  of  Pistoja.  We 
know  already  how  one  of  her  family  feuds  introduced  the  factions  of 
the  Bianchi  and  Neri  in  Florence,  and  finally  caused  the  exile  of 
Dante;  and  we  may  inoffensively  remember  that  Cataline  met  his 
defeat  and  death  on  her  hills  A.  u.  691.  She  was  ruled  more  or  less 
tumultuously  by  princes,  popes,  and  people  till  the  time  of  her  great 
siege  by  the  Lucchese  and  Florentines  and  her  own  Guelph  exiles  in 
1305.  Famine  began  to  madden  the  besieged,  and  men  and  women 
stole  out  of  the  city  through  the  enemy's  camp  and  scoured  the 
country  for  food.  When  the  Florentines  found  tins'  out  they  lay  in 
wait  for  them,  and  such  as  they  caught  they  mutilated,  cutting  off 
their  noses,  or  arms,  or  legs,  and  then  exposing  them  to  the  sight  of 
those  they  had  gone  out  to  save  from  starvation.  After  the  city  fell 
the  Florentine  and  Lucchese  leaders  commanded  such  of  the  wounded 
Pistojese  as  they  found  on  the  field  to  be  gathered  in  heaps  upon  the 
demolished  walls,  that  their  fathers,  brothers,  and  children  might  see 
them  slowly  die,  and  forbade  any  one,  under  pain  of  a  like  fate,  to 
succor  one  of  these  miserable  creatures. 

Pistoja  could  not  endure  the  yoke  fastened  upon  her.  A  few  years 
later  her  whole  people  rose  literally  in  a  frenzy  of  rebellion  against 
the  Lucchese  governor,  and  men,  women,  children,  priests,  and  monks 
joined  in  driving  him  out.  .After  the  heroic  struggle  they  re-estab- 
lished their  own  republic,  which  presently  fell  a  prey  to  the  feud  of 
two  of  her  families,  in  whose  private  warfare  she  suffered  almost  as 
much  as  from  her  foreign  enemies.  Between  them  the  Cancellieri 
and  the  Panciatichi  burned  a  thousand  houses  within  her  walls,  not 
counting  those  without,  and  the  latter  had  plotted  to  deliver  over 
their  country  to  the  Visconti  of  Milan,  when  the  Florentines  inter- 
vened and  took  final  possession  of  Pistoja. 

We  had,  therefore,  not  even  to  say  that  we  were  of  the  Cancellieri 
party  in  order  to  enter  Pistoja,  but  drove  up  to  the  Hotel  di  Londra 
without  challenge,  and  had  dinner  there,  after  which  we  repaired  to 
the  Piazza  del  Duomo ;  and  while  the  artist  got  out  a  plate  and  began 
to  etch  in  the  rain,  the  author  bestirred  himself  to  find  the  sacristan 
and  get  into  the  cathedral.     It  was  easy  enough  to  find  the  sacristan, 


240 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


but  when  he  had  been  made  to  put  his  head  out  of  the  fifth-story 
window  he  answered,  with  a  want  of  enterprise  and  hospitality  which 
I  had  never  before  met  in  Italy,  that  the  cathedral  was  always  open 

at  three  o'clock,  and  he  would 
not  come  down  to  open  it 
sooner.  At  that  hour  I  re- 
venged myself  upon  him  by 
not  finding  it  very  interesting, 
though  I  think  now  the  fault 
must  have  been  in  me.  There 
is  enough  estimable  detail  of 
art,  especially  the  fourteenth- 
century  monument  to  the 
great  lawyer  and  lover,  Cino 
da  Pistoja,  who  is  represented 
lecturing  to  Petrarch  among 
eight  other  of  his  pupils. 
The  lady  in 
the  group  is 
the  Selvaggia 
whom  he  im- 
mortalized in 
his  subtle  and  metaphysical 
verses  ;  she  was  the  daugh- 
ter of  Filippo  Vergiolesi,  the 
leader  of  the  Ghibellines  in 
Pistoja,  and  she  died  of  hope- 
less love  for  Cino,  when  the 
calamities  of  their  country 
drove  him  into  exile  at  the  time  of  the  siege.  He  remains  the  most 
tangible  if  not  the  greatest  name  of  Pistoja  ;  he  was  the  first  of  those 
who  polished  the  Tuscan  speech ;  he  was  a  wonder  of  jurisprudence 
in  his  time,  restoring  the  Eoman  law  and  commenting  nine  books  of 
the  Code ;  and  the  wayfarer,  whether  grammarian,  attorney,  littera- 
teur, or  young  lady  may  well  look  on  his  monument  with  sympathy. 


PISTOJA,   PRATO,  AND  FIE  SOLE.  241 

But  I  brought  away  no  impression  of  pleasure  or  surprise  from  the 
cathedral  generally,  and  in  fact  the  works  of  art  for  which  one  may 
chiefly,  if  not  solely,  desire  to  see  Pistoja  again,  are  the  Delia  Eobbias, 
which  immortally  beautify  the  Ospedale  del  Ceppo.  They  represent 
with  the  simplest  reality,  and  in  the  proportions  of  life,  the  seven  works 
of  mercy  of  St.  Andrea  Franchi,  bishop  of  Pistoja,  in  1399.  They  form 
a  frieze  or  band  round  the  edifice,  and  are  of  the  glazed  terra  cotta  in 
which  the  Delia  Eobbias  commonly  wrought.  The  saint  is  seen 
visiting  "The  Naked,"  "The  Pilgrims,"  "The  Sick,"  "The  Impris- 
oned," "  The  Dead,"  "  The  An  Hungered,"  "  The  Athirst ;  "  and  be- 
tween the  tableaux  are  the  figures  of  "  Faith,"  "  Charity,"  "  Hope," 
"  Prudence,"  and  "  Justice."  There  is  also  "  An  Annunciation,"  "  A 
Visitation,"  "  An  Assumption  ; "  and  in  three  circular  reliefs,  adorned 
with  fruits  and  flowers  after  the  Delia  Eobbia  manner,  the  arms  of 
the  hospital,  the  city,  and  the  Medici ;  but  what  takes  the  eye  and 
the  heart  are  the  good  bishop's  works  of  mercy.  In  these  color  is 
used  as  it  must  be  in  that  material,  and  in  the  broad,  unmingled 
blues,  reds,  yellows,  and  greens,  primary,  sincere,  you  have  satisfying 
actuality  of  effect.  I  believe  the  critics  are  not  decided  that  these 
are  the  best  works  of  the  masters,  but  they  gave  me  more  pleasure 
than  any  others,  and  I  remember  them  with  a  vivid  joy  still.  It  is 
hardly  less  than  startling  to  see  them  first,  and  then  for  every  suc- 
ceeding moment  it  is  delightful.  Giovanni  della  Eobbia  and  his 
brother,  the  monk  Frate  Ambrogio,  and  Andrea  and  his  two  sons, 
Luca  and  Girolomo,  are  all  supposed  to  have  shared  in  this  work, 
which  has,  therefore,  a  peculiar  interest,  though  it  is  not  even  men- 
tioned by  Vasari,  and  seems  to  have  suffered  neglect  by  all  the  earlier 
connoisseurs.  It  was  skilfully  restored  in  1826  by  a  Pistojese  archi- 
tect, who  removed  the  layer  of  dust  that  had  hardened  upon  the 
glaze  and  hid  the  colors  ;  and  in  1839  the  French  Government  asked 
leave  to  reproduce  it  in  plaster  for  the  Beaux  Arts;  from  which  copy 
another  was  made  for  the  Crystal  Palace  at  Sydenham.  It  is,  by  all 
odds,  the  chiefest  thing  in  Pistoja,  where  the  reader,  when  he  goes 
to  look  at  it,  may  like  to  recall  the  pretty  legend  of  the  dry  tree- 
stump  (ceppo~)  breaking  into  bud  and  leaf,  to  indicate  to  the  two  good 

16 


242 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


Pistojese  of  six  hundred  years  ago  where  to  found  the  hospital  which 
this  lovely  frieze  adorns. 

Apparently,  however,  Pistoja  does  not  expect  to  be  visited  for  this 
or  any  other  reason.  I  have  already  held  up  to  obloquy  the  want  of 
public  spirit  in  the  sacristan  of  the  cathedral,  and  I  have  now  to 
report  an  equal  indifference  on  the  part  of  the  owner  of  a  beautiful 


show-villa  which  a  cabman  persuaded  me  drive  some  miles  out  of 
the  town  through  the  rain  to  see.  When  we  reached  its  gate,  we 
were  told  that  the  villa  was  closed ;  simply  that  —  closed.  But  I 
was  not  wholly  a  loser,  for  in  celebration  of  my  supposed  disappoint- 
ment my  driver  dramatized  a  grief  which  was  as  fine  a  theatrical 
spectacle  as  I  have  seen. 


PISTOJA,   PR  A  TO,   AND  FIE  SOLE.  243 

Besides,  I  was  able  to  stop  on  the  way  back  at  the  ancient  church 
of  Santf  Andrea,  where  I  found  myself  as  little  expected,  indeed,  as 
elsewhere,  but  very  prettily  welcomed  by  the  daughter  of  the  sacris- 
tan, whose  father  was  absent,  and  who  made  me  free  of  the  church. 
I  thought  that  I  wished  to  see  the  famous  pulpit  of  Giovanna  da 
Pisa,  son  of  Niccolo,  and  the  little  maid  had  to  light  me  a  candle  to 
look  at  it  with.  She  was  not  of  much  help  otherwise ;  she  did  not 
at  all  understand  the  subjects,  neither  the  Nativity,  nor  the  Adoration 
of  the  Magi  ("Who were  the  three  Magi  Kings?"  she  asked,  and  was 
so  glad  when  I  explained),  nor  the  Slaughter  of  the  Innocents,  nor  the 
Crucifixion,  nor  the  Judgment.  These  facts  were  as  strange  to  her 
as  the  marvellous  richness  and  delicacy  of  the  whole  work,  which, 
for  opulence  of  invention  and  perfect  expression  of  intention,  is  surely 
one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in  all  that  wonderland  of  Italy. 
She  stood  by  and  freshly  admired,  while  I  lectured  her  upon  it  as  if 
I  had  been  the  sacristan  and  she  a  simple  maid  from  America,  and 
got  the  hot  wax  of  the  candle  all  over  my  fingers. 

She  affected  to  refuse  my  fee.  "  Le  pare  ! "  she  said,  with  the 
sweetest  pretence  of  astonishment  (which,  being  interpreted,  is  some- 
thing like  "  The  idea ! " ) ;  and  when  I  forced  the  coin  into  her  un- 
willing hand,  she  asked  me  to  come  again,  when  her  father  was  at 
home. 

Would  I  could !  There  is  no  such  pulpit  in  America,  that  I  know 
of;  and  even  Pistoja,  in  the  rain  and  mud,  nonchalant,  unenter- 
prising, is  no  bad  place. 

I  had  actually  business  there  besides  that  of  a  scribbling  dille- 
tante,  and  it  took  me,  on  behalf  of  a  sculptor  who  had  some  medal- 
lions casting,  to  the  most  ancient  of  the  several  bronze  foundries  in 
Pistoja.  This  foundry,  an  irregular  group  of  low  roofs,  was  enclosed 
in  a  hedge  of  myrtle,  and  I  descended  through  flowery  garden-paths 
to  the  office,  where  the  master  met  me  with  the  air  of  a  host,  instead 
of  that  terrifying  no-adinittance-except-on-business  address,  which 
I  have  encountered  in  my  rare  visits  to  foundries  in  my  own  coun- 
try. Nothing  could  have  been  more  fascinating  than  the  interior  of 
the  workshop,  in  which  the  bronze  figures,  groups,  reliefs,  stood  about 


244  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

in  every  variety  of  dimension  and  all  stages  of  finish.  When  I  con- 
fessed my  ignorance,  with  a  candor  which  I  shall  not  expect  from 
the  reader,  of  how  the  sculpturesque  forms  to  their  last  fragile  and 
delicate  detail  were  reproduced  in  metal,  he  explained  that  an  exact 
copy  was  first  made  in  wax,  which  was  painted  with  successive  coats 
of  liquid  mud,  one  dried  upon  another,  till  a  sufficient  thickness 
was  secured,  and  then  the  wax  was  melted  out,  and  the  bronze  was 
poured  in. 

I  said  how  very  simple  it  was  when  one  knew,  and  he  said,  yes, 
very  simple ;  and  I  came  away  sighing  for  the  day  when  our  foun- 
dries shall  be  enclosed  in  myrtle  hedges,  and  reached  through  garden- 
paths.  I  suppose  I  shall  hardly  see  it,  however,  for  it  had  taken 
almost  a  thousand  years  for  that  foundry  in  Pisa  to  attain  its  idyllic 
setting.     Patience ! 


II. 

On  my  way  home  from  Lucca,  I  stopped  at  Prato,  whither  I  had 
been  tempted  to  go  all  winter  by  the  steam-tramway  trains  snuffling 
in  and  out  of  our  Piazza  Santa  Maria  Novella  at  Florence.  I  found 
it  a  flat,  dull,  commonplace-looking  town  at  first  blush,  with  one 
wild,  huge,  gaunt  piazza,  planted  with  straggling  sycamores,  and 
banged  all  round  by  copper-smiths,  whose  shops  seemed  to  alternate 
with  the  stables  occupying  its  arcades.  Multitudinous  hanks  of  new- 
dyed  yarn  blew  in  the  wind  under  the  trees,  and  through  all  the 
windows  and  open  doors  I  saw  girls  and  women  plaiting  straw.  This 
forms  the  chief  industry  of  Prato,  where,  as  a  kind  little  priest  with. 
a  fine  Koinan  profile,  in  the  railway  carriage,  assured  me  between  the 
prayers  he  kept  saying  to  himself,  there  was  work  for  all  and  all 
were  at  work. 

Secular  report  was  not  so  flattering  to  Prato.  I  was  told  that 
business  was  but  dull  there  since  the  death  of  the  English  gentleman, 
one  Mr.  Askew,  who  has  done  so  much  for  it,  and  who  lies  buried  in 
the  odor  of  sanctity  in  the  old  Carmelite  convent.  I  saw  his  grave 
there  when  I  went  to  look  at  the  frescos,  under  the  tutelage  of  an 


PISTOJA,   PRATO,   AND  FJESOLE.  245 

old,  sleek,  fat  monk,  roundest  of  the  round  dozen  of  brothers  remain- 
ing since  the  suppression.  I  cannot  say  now  why  I  went  to  see  these 
frescos,  but  I  must  have  been  told  by  some  local  guide  they  were 
worthy  to  be  seen,  for  I  find  no  mention  of  them  in  the  books.  My 
old  monk  admired  them  without  stint,  and  had  a  particular  delight 
in  the  murder  of  St.  Martin,  who  was  stabbed  in  the  back  at  the 
altar. 

He  rubbed  his  hands  gleefully  and  pointed  out  the  flying  acolyte : 
"  Sempre  scappa,  ma  e  sempre  Id  ! "  (Always  running,  but  always 
there  !)  And  then  he  burst  into  a  childish,  simple  laugh  that  was 
rather  grewsome,  considering  its  inspiration  and  the  place. 

Upon  the  whole,  it  might  have  been  as  well  to  suppress  that 
brother  along  with  the  convent;  though  I  was  glad  to  hear  his 
praises  of  the  Englishman  who  had  befriended  the  little  town  so 
wisely ;  and  I  was  not  troubled  to  learn  that  this  good  man  was  a 
convert  to  the  religion  of  his  beneficiaries. 

All  that  I  ever  knew  of  him  I  heard  from  the  monk  and  read 
from  his  gravestone  ;  but  until  he  came  nothing  so  definite  had  been 
done,  probably,  to  mend  the  prosperity  of  Prato,  broken  by  the  sack 
in  1512,  when  the  Spaniards,  retiring  from  their  defeat  at  Eavenna 
by  Gaston  de  Foix,  sat  down  before  the  town  and  pounded  a  hole  in 
its  undefended  wall  with  their  cannon.  They. were  the  soldiers  of 
that  Holy  League  which  Pope  Julius  II.  invented,  and  they  were 
marching  upon  Florence  to  restore  the  Medici.  They  were  very 
hungry,  and  as  fearless  as  they  were  pitiless ;  and  when  they  had 
made  a  breach  in  the  wall,  they  poured  into  the  town  and  began  to 
burn  and  to  kill,  to  rob  and  to  ravish. 

"Five  thousand  persons,"  says  a  careful  and  temperate  history, 
"  without  resisting,  without  defending  themselves,  without  provocation, 
were  inhumanly  slaughtered  in  cold  blood ;  neither  age  nor  sex  was 
spared,  nor  sanctity  respected  ;  every  house,  every  church,  every  con- 
vent was  pillaged,  devastated,  and  brutally  defiled.  Only  the  cathe- 
dral, thanks  to  the  safeguard  posted  there  by  the  Cardinal  Legate 
Giovanni  de  Medici,  was  spared,  and  this  was  filled  with  women, 
gathered  there  to  weep,  to  pray,  to  prepare  for  death.     For  days  the 


246  TUSCAN  CITIES. 

barbarous  soldiery  rioted  in  the  sack  of  the  hapless  city,  which,  with 
its  people  decimated  and  its  territory  ravaged,  never  fully  rose  again 
from  its  calamity ;  more  than  three  centuries  passed  before  its  popu- 
lation reached  the  number  it  had  attained  before  the  siege." 

At  that  time  Prato  had  long  been  subject  to  Florence,  but  in  its 
day  Prato  had  also  been  a  free  and  independent  republic,  with  its 
factions  and  its  family  feuds,'  like  another.  The  greatest  of  its  fami- 
lies were  the  Guazziolitri,  of  Guelph  politics,  who  aspired  to  its  sove- 
reignty, but  were  driven  out  and  all  their  property  confiscated.  They 
had  built  for  their  palace  and  fortress  the  beautiful  old  pile  which 
now  serves  the  town  for  municipal  uses,  and  where  there  is  an  inter- 
esting little  gallery,  though  one  ought  rather  to  visit  it  for  its  own 
sake,  and  the  stately  image  it  keeps  in  singular  perfection  of  a  gran- 
deur of  which  we  can  now  but  dimly  conceive. 

I  said  that  Prato  was  dull  and  commonplace,  but  that  only  shows 
how  pampered  and  spoiled  one  becomes  by  sojourn  in  Italy.  Let 
me  explain  now  that  it  was  only  dull  and  commonplace  in  compari- 
son with  other  towns  I  had  been  seeing.  If  we  had  Prato  in  America 
we  might  well  visit  it  for  inspiration  from  its  wealth  of  pictur- 
esqueness,  and  history,  and  of  art.  "We  have,  of  course,  nothing  to 
compare  with  it ;  and  one  ought  always  to  remember,  in  reading  the 
notes  of  the  supercilious  American  tourist  in  Italy,  that  he  is  sneering 
with  a  mental  reservation  to  this  effect.  More  memory,  more  art, 
more  beauty  clusters  about  the  Duomo  at  Prato  than  about  —  I  do 
not  wish  to  be  extravagant  —  the  New  Old  South  in  Boston  or  Grace 
Church  in  New  York. 

I  am  afraid,  indeed,  we  should  not  find  in  the  interior  even  of 
these  edifices  such  frescos  as  those  of  Lippo  Lippi  and  Ghirlandajo 
in  the  cathedral  at  Prato  ;  and  as  for  the  Delia  Eobbia  over  the  door 
and  the  pulpit  of  Donatello  on  the  corner  without,  where  they  show 
the  Virgin's  girdle  on  her  holiday,  what  shall  one  say  ?  We  have 
not  even  a  girdle  of  the  Virgin !  These  are  the  facts  that  must  still 
keep  us  modest  and  make  us  beg  not  to  be  taken  too  positively,  when 
we  say  Prato  is  not  interesting.  In  that  pulpit,  with  its  "  marble 
brede"  of  dancing  children,  one  sees  almost  at  his  best  a  sculptor 


PISTOJA,   PRATO,   AND  FIESOLE.  247 

whose  work,  after  that  of  Mino  da  Fiesole,  goes  most  to  the  heart  of 
the  beholder. 

I  hung  about  the  piazza,  delighting  in  it,  till  it  was  time  to  take 
the  steam-tramway  to  Florence,  and  then  I  got  the  local  postman  to 
carry  my  bag  to  the  cars  for  me.  lie  was  the  gentlest  of  postmen, 
and  the  most  grateful  for  my  franc,  and  he  explained  as  we  walked 
how  he  was  allowed  by  the  Government  to  make  what  sums  he  could 
in  this  way  between  his  distributions  of  the  mail.  His  salary  was 
fifty  francs  a  month,  and  he  had  a  family. 

I  dare  say  he  is  removed  by  this  time,  for  a  man  with  an  income 
like  that  must  seem  an  Offensive  Partisan  to  many  people  of  opposite 
politics  in  Prato. 

The  steam-tramway  train  consisted  of  two  or  three  horse-cars 
coupled  together,  and  drawn  by  the  pony-engine  I  was  familiar  with 
in  our  Piazza.  This  is  a  common  means  of  travel  between  all  large 
Italian  cities  and  outlying  small  towns,  and  I  wonder  why  we  have 
not  adopted  it  in  America.  We  rattled  pleasantly  along  the  level  of 
the  highway  at  the  rate  of  ten  or  twelve  miles  an  hour,  and  none 
of  the  horses  seemed  to  be  troubled  by  us.  They  had  probably  been 
educated  up  to  the  steam-tram,  and  I  will  never  believe  that  Ameri- 
can horses  are  less  capable  of  intellectual  development  than  the 
Italian. 

III. 

We  postponed  our  visit  to  Fiesole,  which  we  had  been  meaning  to 
make  all  winter,  until  the  last  days  of  our  Florentine  sojourn,  and  it 
was  quite  the  middle  of  April  when  we  drove  up  to  the  Etruscan 
city. 

"Go  by  the  new  road  and  come  back  by  the  old,"  said  a  friend 
who  heard  we  were  really  going  at  last.  "  Then  you  will  get  the 
whole  thing." 

We  did  so ;  but  I  am  not  going  to  make  the  reader  a  partner  of  all 
of  our  advantages  ;  I  am  not  sure  that  lie  would  be  grateful  for 
them ;  and  to  tell  the  truth,  I  have  forgotten  which  road  Boccaccio's 
villa  was  on  and  which  the  villa  of  the  Medici.     Wherever  they  are 


248 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


they  are  charming.  The  villa  of  Boccaccio  is  now  the  Villa  Palmieri ; 
I  still  see  it  fenced  with  cypresses,  and  its  broad  terrace  peopled 
with  weather-beaten  statues,  which  at  a  distance  I  could  not  have 
sworn  were  not  the  gay  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  met  there  and 


A  STREET   IN   FIESOLE. 


told  their  merry  tales  while  the  plague  raged  in  Florence.  It  is  not 
only  famous  as  the  supposed  scene  of  the  Decamerone,  but  it  takes 
its  name  from  a  learned  gentleman  who  wrote  a  poem  there,  in  which 
he  maintained  that  at  the  time  of  Satan's  rebellion  the  angels  who 
remained  neutral  became  the  souls  now  inhabiting  our  bodies.     For 


PISTOJA,   PRATO,  AND  FIESOLE. 


249 


this  uncomfortable  doctrine  his  poem,  though  never  printed,  was  con- 
demned by  the  Inquisition  —  and  justly.  The  Villa  Medici,  once 
Villa  Mozzi,  and  now  called  Villa  Spence,  after  the  English  gentle- 
man who  inhabits  it,  was  the  favorite  seat  of   Lorenzo  before  he 


US  ! 

V:1      r-f 


A   FLORENTINE   VILLA. 


placed  himself  at  Villa  Carreggi ;  hither  he  resorted  with  his  wits, 
his  philosophers,  his  concubines,  buffoons,  and  scholars ;  and  here 
it  was  that  the  Pazzi  hoped  to  have  killed  him  and  Giuliano  at 
the  time  of  their  ill-starred  conspiracy.  You  come  suddenly  upon 
it,  deeply  dropped  amidst  its  gardens,  at  a  turn  of  the  winding  slopes 
which  make  the  ascent  to  Fiesole  a  constantly  changing  delight  and 
wonder. 

Fiesole  was  farther  than  she  seemed  in  the  fine,  high  air  she 
breathes,  and  we  had  some  long  hours  of  sun  and  breeze  in  the  ex- 
quisite spring  morning  before  the  first  Etruscan  emissaries  met  us 
with  the  straw  fans  and  parasols  whose  fabrication  still  employs  their 
remote  antiquity.     They  were  pretty  children  and  young  girls,  and 


250 


TUSCAN  CITIES. 


they  were  preferable  to  the  mediaeval  beggars  who  had  swarmed  upon 
us  at  the  first  town  outside  the  Florentine  limits,  whither  the  Pia 
Casa  di  Eecovero  could  not  reach  them.  From  every  point  the 
world-old  town,  fast  seated  on  its  rock,  looked  like  a  fortress,  inex- 
pugnable and  picturesque ;  but  it  kept  neither  promise,  for  it  yielded 
to  us  without  a  struggle,  and  then  was  rather  tame  and  common- 
place, —  commonplace  and  tame,  of  course,  comparatively.     It  is  not 


A    COURTYARD,    FIESOLE. 


everywhere  that  you  have  an  impressive  Etruscan  wall ;  a  grass- 
grown  Roman  amphitheatre,  lovely,  silent ;  a  museum  stocked  with 
classic  relics  and  a  custodian  with  a  private  store  of  them  for  sale, 
not  to  speak  of  a  cathedral  begun  by  the  Florentines  just  after  they 
destroyed  Fiesole  in  1000.  Fiesole  certainly  does  not,  however,  in- 
vite one  by  its  modern  aspect  to  think  of  the  Etruscan  capital  which 
Cicero  attacked  in  the  Roman  Senate  for  the  luxury  of  its  banquets 
and  the  lavish  display  of  its  inhabitants.  It  was  but  a  plain  and 
simple  repast  that  the  Cafe  Aurora  afforded  us,  and  the  Fiesolans 


PISTOJA,   PRATO,   AND  FIESOLE.  251 

seemed  a  plain  and  simple  folk ;  perhaps  in  one  of  them  who  was 
tipsy  an  image  of  their  classic  corruptions  survived. 

The  only  excitement  of  the  place  we  seemed  to  have  brought  with 
us  ;  there  had,  indeed,  been  an  election  some  time  before,  and  the 
dead  walls  —  it  seems  odd  that  all  the  walls  in  Fiesole  should  not 
be  dead  by  this  time  —  were  still  placarded  with  appeals  to  the 
enlightened  voters  to  cast  their  ballots  for  Peruzzi,  candidate  for 
the  House  of  Deputies  and  a  name  almost  as  immemorial  as  their 
town's. 

However  luxurious,  the  Fiesolans  were  not  proud ;  a  throng  of 
them  followed  us  into  the  cathedral,  where  we  went  to  see  the  beau- 
tiful monument  of  Bishop  Salutali  by  Mino  da  Fiesole,  and  allowed 
me  to  pay  the  sacristan  for  them  all.  There  may  have  been  a  sort 
of  justice  in  this  ;  they  must  have  seen  the  monument  so  very  often 
before  ! 

They  were  sociable,  but  not  obtrusive,  not  even  at  the  point  called 
the  Belvedere,  where,  having  seen  that  we  were  already  superabund- 
antly supplied  with  straw  fans  and  parasols,  they  stood  sweetly  aside 
aud  enjoyed  our  pleasure  in  the  views  of  Florence.  This  ineffable 
prospect  — 

But  let  me  rather  stand  aside  with  the  Fiesolans,  and  leave  it  to 
the  reader! 


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With  Introduction  and  Comment  by  W.  D.  Howells.  56  illustrations. 
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CHOICE    AUTOBIOGRAPHIES. 

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VII.,  VIII.   Francois  Marmontei.. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


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